


Green Light

by warschach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha Keith, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bonding, F/M, Fluff, Gun Violence, Insecurity, M/M, Mating, Mutual Pining, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Lance, Pining Keith (Voltron), Romantic Comedy, Smut, Warning: Blue Balls, basically i want keith to cry b/c of how perfect and beautiful lance is, i put too much humor my bad, mild burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:07:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 74,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warschach/pseuds/warschach
Summary: Keith's good with trouble, he's alpha and a skilled cop in Chicago's Alpha Unit, so when shit hits south Keith can change it to north. If bad guys run Keith ropes them in. If bullets fly Keith is usually good at not being the target. Not the same for knives but- he knows how to handle trouble.So why the fuck can't he handle one pretty omega with a chip on his shoulder and literal water for eyes?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ABO, i know i'm so creative but you knew this shit was comin for klance.
> 
> this would've been one whole chap but if you read my other ABO fic, I like to take my time and build that fuckin' relationship yo. also this isn't a typical ABO fic so don't expect smut until later. the pov will switch from lance to keith but this is mainly written in Keith's pov
> 
> another note most of this fic is mostly written so i'll post a chap a week as i write up the the final chapters. i know weekly updates, the fuck right?
> 
> i held off on this one cause i wanted to get it right, idk, but i do really hope you guys like it

Lance wasn’t broken.

His bones hurt, sure.

His cheeks stung like a real bad mother.

The cold, hard ground was unforgivable on his ass and the shutter door on his spine was no kinder.

Parts of him hurt.

Parts of him felt…adrift might be the word. Physically here in all the right states, he could still count up to a thousand. Could enjoy his coffee. Could mouth the words to his favorite songs. Could smile and laugh a little. But like all things, it faded. This weird emptiness came back, creeping ever so _slowly_ like the darkness on the moon’s surface. That _walking, strolling_ shadow at the heel of light.

Mentally, Lance was gonzo. Adrift. Like someone stuffed him into a spacesuit and kicked him off the ledge of the space. Watched the lack of gravity just float Lance anyway.

He was not— fuck that god damn word— broken.

Broken meant you were fucked royally and required maintenance.

Lance didn’t need shit from you or anyone.

_You can’t hurt me, these shades are Gucci._

Lance didn’t fucking cry or mope.

He made a joke. Laughed until the pain was so _so_ far down in him he fooled himself. No tragedies happened to Lance. His life put the E into easy and the L into laughter. There were no strings on him. Couldn’t catch Lance on fucking feelings.

So he wasn’t moping and he was not about to cry right now on the ground like an unwanted mutt.

Lance pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes as the burning continued, as the pressure swelled there, and willed it to leave.

_I’m not broken._

_I don’t cry._

_But…a lot of me is not here right now._

_The Lance you’re looking for is out of your area._

_Please try your call again._

_Goodbye._

A lot of him was out of his area code so it was no fault of his own that the omega started emitting this scent like a wounded pup, this _I can’t be with me, someone be with me please_ calling card.  S-O-S. Awful, honestly. He seriously wished the omega would shut that shit up but he was all torn and battered in new places and bleeding profusely. Taking the haul. The burden of the broken bond. Which that asshole should do because he thought bonding was a good deal.

Bond with an alpha—cause that was forever, man.

Me and you.

Lovers.

A team.

Partners.

You got my back.

You know me.

Forever… you know what you could do with your fucking forever after?

Huh?

Fucking shove it.

No one talked about the after. Stories focused on the forever portion, it sold books and movies. It was why you bought flowers and chocolates and why every time you returned despite the cons that stared glaringly in your face and screamed the truth.

 Forever was good. Forever was fucking each other all night. Touching him _here_ and _there_. Feeling him hot and hard. Feeling yourself growing the same like there was no sky and no bottom like you were the stars and the moon.

Forever was making love. Looking in his eyes and thinking _fuck, I love you, I love you, I love you. Never leave me, please_. Forever was in his arms and hearing his heartbeat. Waking up with him. Starting the day. Sharing a meal. Your hand in his.

Lance had the forever.

Now he was in the after and trying to make his bleeding wounds invisible.

Tried so hard that Lance didn’t pick up on the alpha walking down the alleyway where Lance sat under a lamp post, painted yellow in the light. Probably looking as awful and as disjointed as he felt right then.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith wanted two things, his bed and enough beer to induce him into a permanent coma. No resurrection. No reanimation of any kind, leave that funny science fiction shit to the novels and Star Wars None of this _doctor save him, save Keith_. As close as D-E-A-D you could get without being dead.

Alright, normally Keith wasn’t so glum but the week was long and if he made contact with anything resembling a bed, Keith would drop.

Sleep deprivation. Annoyed to the tenth circle of hell that Satan himself might avoid Keith. And so wound tight a fly could warrant his fist.

So Keith stopped coveting a dead sleep and stopped walking all together at the opening of the alley because—

Keith was stupid.

Keith was a stupid alpha cop who could not shut it down even after the clock stopped and the check came in.

And the omega was a pretty thing.

So basically Keith was a fucking idiot.

Let us resume to alpha Keith thinking dumb with his head and thinking smart with his body.

Omega was pretty, P-R-E-T-T-Y. Spell that backward and forward, up and down, and the angles in between the gaps and you got him.

For a pretty thing he was fucked up pretty bad and he meant that literally, the omega sported an angry shiner, purple and yellow, on his cheekbone and a nasty gash slicing up his brow. Whoever did this probably didn’t find him so pretty as Keith and was a huge asshole. He smelled sweet too like an omega should, a drop of honey and a teaspoon of caramel and vanilla extract, so very sweet that the alpha wanted to apply lips to the discolored parts of him and mend them new.

 Odd for Keith since he didn’t really take to omegas in general and not on the account that he couldn’t get it up or get arousal. He was a healthy alpha for the most part and the credit for that came from his job as a cop in New York’s alpha unit. Fitness was a requirement when handling alphas as they tended to be more stubborn and stronger than humans and the last thing they wanted currently was some other alpha pushing his dominance on them.

For an alpha with a powerful bloodline and fists and a body to attest to the fact, Keith didn’t chase omegas or anyone. Okay, he fucked a few. He had a cock, come on. But wanting to be Superman for one of them; not ever.

 _It’s a bad neighborhood_ , Keith rationalized.

Houses were boarded up, the shingles dangled to the last string of adhesive, the impression of flames licked black marks across the house. Pot holes littered the street, especially dangerous in the nighttime. Half of the sidewalk was slanted or sinking. Rats scurried around the edges of trash cans as they ate through plastic bags for a meal.

Maybe sweet, pretty omega wasn’t as such.

Maybe he was a wise ass and got the shit coming for him.

He had the look of a guy who invited trouble and liked it. Cobbled it up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That look in his eyes also communicated _I don’t need your help, fuck off_.

 _Go home_ , he thought.

Keith walked down the alleyway to the tagged shutter door of a garage. The spray paint was matte black and broadcasted the usual intelligent message of gangs. The sigils were familiar, Keith ran into a few alpha gangs on the occasion.

Loose gravel crunched under his boots.

Omega moved his face up and damn— the face, those eyes, that mouth could force Keith’s soul out of his physical body and into the astral plane and let him ghost through walls and bend concrete. Eyes so profoundly _blue_ that it was hard to think past them and not swim in them. They’re water. Some asshole grabbed water from a white beach with tropical blue waves and handed it to this omega for eyes. This guy just walked with water eyes.

Asshole.

“Yea?” Blue asked and Keith got pissed when the voice coming out sounded like the rumble of the earth. Like what the actual fuck. Go be blue and handsome somewhere else, dickhead, don’t do that here.

“You okay?” Keith asked.

“Are you a hooker? If I had the cash and the stamina I would let you but I don’t. Thanks for the offer.”

“I’m a fuckin’ cop.”

“The stripping kind?”

“Nah,” he pulled his jacket and flashed the solid, gray iron holstered in a leather harness and the gold badge clipped to his belt. “I’m the real deal.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Geez, I’m sorry. Aren’t cops like ugly?”

“My friend is but we try to be supportive and say his personality is great. It’s not but cops are good liars.”

“Well if you ever quit being a cop, I might suggest stripping or something but that’s just me.”

“You’re on the ground.”

The omega looked at the ground and gasped in mock surprise. “Why you’re right, officer. I am.”

“And bruised.”

He touched his cheek, the smile going wide and brilliant on his face. Magnetic. Diamond-grade. Electric. So radiant and stellar it left Keith unbalanced and ignorant that no matter the cut of the situation the omega was shamelessly sassing his ass like the gold badge and the cold iron had no weight.

Usually, Keith demonstrated little restraint in knocking respect into smartasses.

Must be going soft for blue eyes and diamond smiles.

The cop told Keith to pack it clearly, the omega would rather spend a night in an alley.

The alpha ordered Keith to park his ass until the omega had a bed and four walls to protect him.

Wanna know which side won?

Here’s a hint: Keith still staring at the omega.

Still wondering.

 “Damn. Right again,” the omega joked.

Keith flicked his thumb across his nose and squatted low, eyes reading the omega as he collected the evidence and created the scene in his mind. “And a wise ass, did you get jump?”

The omega shrugged, tipped his head back on the shutter door with the metal rattling angrily like a mean snake. The hood on his army green jacket fell back. The bruise was more visible but Keith noticed the red veins leading up to his water eyes and the red on the tip of his nose. There was no chill to warrant the sniffles.

Keith didn’t know where this ungovernable anger came from or where to place it but it churned in his gut and his hands begged to curl and make hard fists.

The omega said. “Not really but he did steal my phone and money. Left me my wallet though and credit card so it’s not too bad. I don’t feel like reporting it so don’t bother.”

Oh?! Don’t brother, not like I’m sitting next to empty bottles and cig stubs, not like I was talking to the air with my scent for someone to pick me up. This god damn guy, really. “You should.”

“I did tell him to suck my dick so maybe I’m not the victim here, officer,” he laughed.

Keith grabbed his phone and unlocked the screen. “Do you have someone I can call for you?”

The omega tapped his finger on Keith’s wrist and lowered it. The skin burned there like someone put it under a live wire. “Don’t remember anyone’s number and I don’t wanna show up at one in the morning.”

“You’re not staying here,” Keith grumbled, pissed at himself for getting so tangled up on this. He heard the sob stories plenty of times, the battered omegas, the neglected alphas, the broken pairs of mates  who threw the TV out the window with no regard for anyone walking below.

He passed those on to Shiro, his brother, who was more empathetic and had a better range of facial expression. There was friendly Shiro, sweet Shiro, and _I’m going to be with you every step_ Shiro. Keith had one, _get fucking wise and I’ll lay you out_ , or more commonly known as bitch face. Wounded people wanted someone to look invested in their story and Keith could muster no more than a nod and an oh.

Now his face settled on every emotion but calm; he reached for the omega’s arm and the omega recoiled and jerked to his feet. Had a few decent inches on Keith and more grace and strength to him than his curled form let on. Omegas tended to lean on the smaller, softer side— their body pumped more estrogen no matter the sex so they were delicate in a lot of ways.

This guy wasn’t. The delicacy was in his attractive face and water eyes.

He said, “The fuck, I’m not bothering anyone.”

“You’re bothering me.”

“What? You’re seriously—“

Keith huffed, leave it to his mouth to miscommunicate and throw the situation sideways. “Yes. I’m seriously taking you home with me.  You’re not staying here and you’re not walking around like that.”

The omega blinked, blue eyes squinting as he reconsidered the conversation. “Um. Wait, what?”

“I said you’re crashing with me.”

“With you?” The omega asked with a tone.

“There a problem?”

“You yelled at me,” he said.

“I raised my voice.”

“Yea,” he answered, then repeated with a slowness to suggest Keith might be the slow one here. “Yelling.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Fine. Forget it.”

“Listen…uh,” the omega waited for Keith to fill in the blank. Too bad for the omega cause Keith was medically brain dead  hence the whole _stay at my place pretty omega_ that was inadvisable even to his standards of operation and Keith made a nasty habit of running head first into bullets and knives. “What’s your name policeman?”

“Keith.”

The omega nodded. “Cool, I’m Lance. But Keith thanks but I feel bad putting you out like that.”

“And I won’t get any fuckin’ sleep knowing you’re out here. Let’s go,” he growled, probably sounding less and less like a cop who upheld justice and protected the weak and more a villain with an uncooperative hostage.

“Okay, you sound like you don’t wanna do that.”

“I could arrest you.”

Ah, Keith.

So wise.

Must’ve missed this course class in the academy cause there was nowhere in the book that said if someone refused aid that the next tactical and logic step was to arrest them.

See what happened when you got no sleep and mouthy alphas and uncooperative omegas.

Lance grinned and tucked his thumbs in his pockets. No fear. Fully secured and aware Keith couldn’t touch him. “For sitting on the floor. Maybe I don’t look wise, Keith, but I know my rights and there ain’t no law about that.”

“Dunno. You were just sitting in piss so.” Keith pointed to the reflective glow of water running down the cracked alleyway.

 Grass grew tall and thin in the gaps. One silver car with tinted windows turned down the road and slowed next to them, Keith showcased his badge and gun and driver applied more gas. The heavy body thumped over the speed bumps.

“It’s not piss,” Lance argued once the car’s taillights pulled out of the alley.

“Looks yellow to me but hey, peeman, you wanna stay in it—“

“Peeman?” Lance sincerely giggled. A laugh of authenticity and not one staged to save his devil may care front. Keith didn’t think laughs could get so pretty. “Good looking and a sense of humor. Bad guys probably hate you.”

“No one likes cops but I do get stabbed quite frequently.”

Four times and two of those was Keith being hardheaded and sloppy. The scars healed well enough to be no more than pearly pink slashes on his skin, the perks of a strong alpha bloodline.

Lance walked up to him and checked him head to toe and decided. “You seem decent to me.”

“Wait until you break the law, I won’t be,” Keith said, trying not to breathe through his mouth and nose as Lance’s scent chainsaw his insides.

“I’ll be on my best behavior, officer. Scout’s honor,” Lance tapped two fingers to his brow in a mock salute.

“Is that a yes?”

“Sure. I got nowhere to be.”

“C-cool.”

“You kinda need to lead me, officer.”

“Oh, yea.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

So Keith was taking a complete stranger to his home. Really stupid.

This stranger was a gorgeous omega and depending who you asked the idea was insanely idiotic or a genius plan.

Keith settled on insanely idiotic as he opened the front door and let Lance walk through first because it dawned on him then— that syrupy sweet omega scent bumping nicely with the alpha’s home— how much fuller his place was, how seamlessly that scent tracked and filled the empty crevices, how it never felt acutely hollow until right now.

Stupid fucking alpha biology.

Sniff a dude and you fooled your body into thinking you found the right one.

“I’m not gonna make your omega angry or anything, right?” Lance asked, peering into the shadows of Keith’s one room apartment.

Keith engaged the lock and flipped the light on for the hall. “No. I don’t have anyone.”

Light shined on Lance’s wind-tousled hair, making the brown strands glow with a bronze shimmer. The redness around his eyes diminished but the skin around it still looked puffy and delicate.

 “Really? I thought the whole bad boy thing got you ass on the regular,” Lance said. “Being a cop can’t hurt.”

“Yes, dress slacks and polos are the definition of sex appeal.” Keith hung up his jacket on the hook and tossed his keys on the glass dish set up on a dresser. Shiro’s idea, not his but Keith never left the place without his keys.

“There’s no way you wear slacks. You got jeans on.”

Keith shrugged, the grin splitting his face could earn its own hazardous warning.“Maybe it’s laundry day.”

“You don’t have a laundry day,” the omega said. “Bet you wash your clothes every week.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” The concern in his voice was legitimate.

“No. I wait a whole month.”

“Now I want to wash your clothes.”

If Keith’s grin was the toxic chemicals in industrial dump pools, then Lance was certified uranium. Radiation. A force committing invisible warfare on your internal organs. “If you want me out of them, you should just ask. I’m a good guy. I listen to law enforcement.”

_Mayday. Fucking mayday._

Lance was flirting with him.

They were flirting.

In his house.

And okay, did you want to know a secret about Keith? He acted cool and all. Subzero face. Stony sapphire eyes. Long rocker hair that everyone in the department gave him shit for. Hard and strong where his job required him to be. Fast and agile to climb up fences and charge down alphas and pin them to the floor as he wrestled for his cuffs. His people skills could use a lot of work but he didn’t have problems getting people on their knees for him or into his bed.

Guys ate it up. Loved cool Keith. Liked that Keith was slender and sculpted so they got the perks of hard muscles without dating a dude who was stacked. They loved that Keith could pin them wherever he deemed and _keep them there_ like a cosmic force.

Girls gushed and fawned cause Keith was so untouchable, so aloof, so callous. You could cut yourself fucking him and girls wanted the inch deep scars.

Keith fucked.

Keith knew how to play guys and chicks. Just look at his face.

Look at the body.

Fucking catnip.

Bona-fide flame for moths.

The actual living personification of thick black tar, of sharp knives, of shady alleys, the belly of slumbering volcanoes.

Point was Keith didn’t panic.

Keith was ice.

Keith didn’t mind having a quick nasty thing.

But Keith wasn’t feeling nasty— he was but give him a second to explain— there was more to it. Lance invited more than desire from him. Lance power slammed Keith into a dimension of sex and charm uncharted by humanity. When he thought the guy couldn’t get any finer, he did.

When he thought Lance couldn’t make him want his hand in his and his ass on his dick, he did.

Keith had experience with sex. Meaningless sex. Sex with alphas, betas, and omegas.

He had no experience with _this_.

This thing living between sex and emotion.

Sex and compatibility.

Mates.

Bonding.

This was a rare moment— Keith learning to back up. “I wasn’t trying. Fuck this isn’t.”

“I know but you’re literally screaming out how bad you want it and I just got out of something. Broken bond and all.”

Wow.

The one omega Keith was digging and he was fresh out of a bond.

Clearly, Keith had some cosmic debt to pay off if the universe thought it was cute to send this omega to him and pull him off the market.

Leaving a bond tweaked mates up bad. Felt them hurting and aching in the places the bond once resided. Left them weak and susceptible to other alphas and omegas.

Lance was someone’s else omega.

Lance had an alpha.

Someone had him.

Got Lance.

Got to be his.

Maybe that alpha would wise up and realize the colossal error he made in dropping someone so _right_. Keith couldn’t touch that. He had no information on how bad the situation went or whether or not this guy wanted his alpha back. Sure, Keith looked like a good replacement. Strong and secure. Except Keith wasn’t one nor did he want to be.

Keith dialed down the alpha. Dimmed the hormones begging for Lance to kiss him, to fix him, to place his well-being into his hands. “I’ll stop. Seriously. Nothing has to happen. I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“He stopped giving a shit,” Lance explained, body and voice _wicked._ Lips a thing for Keith to kiss and cherish. Eyes a thing for Keith to gaze into and wondered how the universe got a man so right. Face a thing to _haunt_ Keith day and night, sunrise and sunset, from this year to the next.

”We stopped fucking for months and— this is really stupid of me to unload on you like this— but I like how you smell. I like how you look.”

“Lance. You’re in a bad spot.”

“Yea. I know, Keith.” Lance walked him into a walk. Brushed up close against Keith. Smelled like nothing Keith ever experience. Smelled like a million stars combusting. A thousand climaxes peaking. Keith ached, _bad_.

Sent out the hormones of _I can be what you need._

_I can do it better, Lance_

_Let me be that._

_He isn’t the alpha you need._

_I am._

_You’ll see when I touch you._

_When I kiss you._

_You’ll know when I’m inside you._

“I can tell you haven’t had a fuck in forever too. You know that? Your alpha is singing to me. Telling me a lot of things I should do. He’s asking me to suck you.”

Why thank you, alpha.

Why don’t you make this a hundred times harder than it needs to be.

“I can’t.”

Lance stepped away. “Okay.”

The scent receded. Curled back like a retreating wave. It shocked Keith’s nerves. It tipped his alpha sideways into a vortex.

“It’s not that—“

“I get it,” Lance said, voice low and wounded. “Don’t worry really. I’m not mad.”

Without thinking, Keith pulled Lance back. Felt every bone in his body slot nicely into the joints. He found Lance’s eyes and saw the threat of emotions. “I want to.”

Lance averted his gaze and stared numbly at the wall. A wobble weaved through his words. “Man you don’t gotta stroke my ego. I’ll recover.”

“I’m being legit with you. You got no idea what I want to do to you but I’m not gonna mess with someone recovering from a broken bond.”

“I understand,” he chewed his bottom lip, swallowing harshly. “People like a mess free kind of deal.”

“Messes aren’t the issue.” Keith moved his hand to Lance’s face, traced his fingers along his jaw, denied himself when he saw Lance’s bitten red lips and went back to cup his cheek. He shouldn’t be touching him. _I shouldn’t touch him, not with him hurting._

Keith didn’t remove his hand. “It’s just the right thing to do. You’re in a spot. I won’t take advantage.”

For the first time, a real smile split Lance’s face. “Ugh, you’re being nice too. Make me hate you, please.”

“Ok. Uh, I think I was right about the peeman thing. Go use my shower and I’ll wash your clothes.”

“All I’m hearing is you wanting me wet and naked,” Lance teased but wisely walked himself out of Keith’s hands.

“Shower,” Keith ordered.

Lance brought his hands up in surrender and started walking backward. “I’ll need clothes unless you want me walking naked.”

“And I’ll get you some. The bathroom in the first door past the kitchen.”

 

 

[x]

 

Keith switched out Lance’s dirty clothes for his largest pair of joggers and t-shirt while Lance showered and promptly marched his ass out of the steaming room with the shadowed silhouette of Lance lathering his body with his soap. The naked shadow of Lance who currently had running water chasing every inch of his body from the top of his head to the gap between his toes, the parts of him visible and nonvisible, public and private.

He left before the thought could develop into a fantasy.

Remember, broken bond?

Unavailable.

He went after you because his mind and omega were reeling from the rupture of a mental and physical bond.

Did he need any more signs to beware?

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith oiled up a pan, defrosted some strips of bacon, and brought out everything to cook up BLTs. He ditched his blue jeans and black button up for cotton sweat pants and vintage Aerosmith shirt.  His washer currently had his and Lance’s clothes swirling through the rinse cycle. A TV droned on in the background and drowned out the noise of the running shower.

You know, where Lance was. Naked. Wet.

He really wished he had something to shoot or hit.

Be way better than dealing with this pathetic level of thirst.

Did you think people in the Sahara desert thirsted as much as Keith did in a single night?

 Keith had twenty-five years under his belt and a few failed relationships, fewer strings of hook-ups. He lost no sleep on them.

But let him fucking breathe the same air as Lance and hello boner and goodbye ground cause he started to walk on air.

Either there was no God or God found a new person to enlist on his shit list.

He listened to the actors on the screen. It was something Marvel definitely with the number of quips spitting out the character’s mouth.

He flipped the bacon. The pan sizzled and popped and randomly spat out boiling balls of oil. One caught Keith on his inner arm but it was no more than a pint-size sphere.  He turned off the stove and started prepping the bread.

Lance popped into the kitchen then, pants riding obnoxiously low on his bony hips and shirt tight to his dewy skin. Water dripped from the tips of his bangs and ran down his face and neck to wet the shirt.

Smart, Keith.

A white shirt.

And shitty sweat pants with no elastic band.

You had one job, my friend.

One. Job.

But smart on his alpha though cause Lance was a dreamboat right now. Soft and comfy in his clothes and smelling like his shampoo and conditioner. Smelling like _Keith’s_. Smelling right. That white beach and honey, blue water scent tumbled in with the heavy nicotine, sawdust scent of his.

“Dude your shower is awesome,” Lance said as he combed his hair back with his fingers.

Keith dipped the butter knife in mayo and spread it on the bread. “Thanks. The clothes are okay?”

Subtle one, Keith.

Lance walked to the counter and watched Keith work on dinner. “A little small but hey, I’m not complaining.“

“I hope you like bacon.”

The omega buzzed with enthusiasm. “You’re makin me food too? Dude. Stop being nice to me, really. This is too much.”

“People literally tell me I’m an asshole all the time. Kinda nice to have someone say otherwise.”

“Can I apologize for earlier?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I put you out there.”

True but Keith wanted to be in that position badly. He still wanted it now even with all the warning signs. People needed time after the bond to recover mentally and physically depending on the degree and duration of their bond. Some never got out of recovery and refused to bond again. Getting with someone right out of a bond was akin to being the rebound in a human relationship.

Sure chances had it that you might beat the numbers and work out but the odds favored the deterioration of it rather than its growth.

“It’s okay,” he said. Putting his feelings on the situation wouldn’t help and Lance needed someone to support him. Not someone trying to manipulate him during one of his most vulnerable stages of post-breakup.

Lance poked his arm and grinned kindly as Keith looked. “I still think you’re attractive as hell and it’s not on the account of me being all fucked right now.”

“Your alpha’s an idiot.”

“Sometimes I think it’s the other way around. That I fucked up. That I’m the reason it didn’t work out. That nothing will work. Sorry, I’m talking about him again.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Your alpha does.”

“Yea, well he doesn’t like a lot of people so that’s no surprise to me. Asshole got me into fights all the time.”

“You too?”

“You got into fights cause your omega?”

“Well, yea. I’m a rogue omega. You know the biology of a pup, mind of a dog. That sort of trade off.”

It made sense—the delicacy of estrogen softening and buffing omegas in plump curves sitting alongside a serving of testosterone that defined dangerous lines on an alpha and gave Lance the alpha’s  trademark short spark for patience and levelheaded thinking.

Biology tweaked their bodies so a balance existed between omegas and alphas that way no partner had all of the power in a couple. Alphas lost control. Omegas brought alphas under control. Rogues broke the stereotypical trends installed in alphas and omegas, their bodies produced the excess of the opposite chemical. Betas lucked out on this oddity as their chemical composite was closer to a human; rogues commonly appeared within the DNA of alphas and omegas.

The sex appeal and allure of an omega gave Lance’s that majestic, electric type of beauty but the rouge hardened him everywhere else, enhanced his stature with wide shoulders and long legs, and  developed callouses on his fingers.

“Let me guess, you were a smartass and messed with the wrong people.”

“Some people find my humor charming.”

“Who are these people, you sure they’re even real and not in your head?”

Lance snorted, “Dick.”

“That was me. All high school. Then college. ”

“And now,” Lance joked then yelped when Keith threatened him with the butter knife. Mayo oozed down the length and Keith naturally thought of cum. He imagined blood instead. Easier that way.  “I should call nine-one-one on you.”

“Jokes on you I am the one who answers the call.”

“Guess I’m in trouble.”

“You’ll be if you don’t eat my meat.”

“That sounded hot and wrong. Very Hannibal like.”

Keith passed him a BLT and thought of a million responses to that and the majority were sexual and suggestive. He went to the couch, figuring a better choice was to not bite the bait.

Not even if he wanted to be hook and fish out.

 

 

[x]

 

The talked but the conversation on Lance’s ex-alpha never reappeared which Keith appreciated, it helped with the illusion that Lance was with him. But he learned a lot on the omega— that he talked with his mouth full and he could still pass for stunning while doing so. That he grew up on the same cartoons as Keith— X-men, Batman, Dexter’s Laboratory, the PowerPuff Girls.

 Learned Lance was fluent in Spanish and asked for a demonstration of it— by the husk of his voice and the roll of the words whatever Lance said would probably make a nun’s ears blush red.

Figured out Lance dressed up every Halloween. Every. One.

Keith understood two things at the end of the night— Lance was perfect.

And this would be the last and only time Keith would get of him.

 

_Should’ve passed you by_

_Should’ve went home_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for the support guys!!
> 
> good news I wrote up chap 8 and 9 but i did extend this to 12 chaps instead of ten.

Keith lumbered at seven in the morning and saw Lance sprawled like a relaxed dog under the blanket, arms and legs carelessly spread in all directions. He snored too; Keith fucking thought it was cute.

Snoring.

Adorable?

Sorry but the math was shit and Keith excelled brilliantly with concrete concepts like the earth was round, even numbers divided the fastest, and where to land bullets in hostile alphas and how to make his fists feel like a cast iron black sledgehammer.

Simple shit.

Cute and snoring—

Didn't make any lick of sense but last night wouldn’t find a place in Keith’s top smartest choices. Probably in Keith’s dumbest smartest choices with the following— joining the force, pairing off with Pidge as his alpha partner, eating a chili dog before hopping on the Giant Dipper at Six Flags, crashing his motorcycle (the accident proved to him that yea, the wheels were sick and Son of Anarchy vibe slain the babes and you know Keith was rocking that leather jacket like a smooth mother, but alpha blood could protect his ass so much; so bye two wheels and hello four wheel Stang).

Well, dumbest smartest choice number— Keith lost count— would be on his merry way once Keith dropped him off to a place with walls and a door and that would be that. His alpha would probably get his ass in line and realize what a monumental mistake it was breaking it off with Lance.

Case closed.

Press on, Keith, there were plenty of fishes in the sea. This one looked especially pretty and splendid because he had a label of off-limits. Guys wanted what they couldn’t have.

You wanted him because within the laws of their reality, and not this Nora Sparks’ novella romance shit, Lance would be too high with people and his own energy to see Keith.

Dude was popular, hot, and funny as hell. Keith’s cheeks actually ached from grinning so much last night.

Remember high school, beauty and popularity attracted beauty and popularity. Withdrawal and a close off nature invited — well little.

Let dreamboat sail off and repatch his life.

You did good, Keith.

Helped a person in need like you were about to do once more at the precinct and like those times before you stepped off after the dust settled, the case went to court, the sentence determined, the families rewarded with some pension to heal their hearts or bones.

Let this one go the same route.

Keith fixed the sheets where they dropped and exposed Lance’s feet to the air and started a pot of coffee.

Gotta let this one sail, he reminded himself as he grabbed a filter and spooned in coffee grounds

 

 

[x]

 

“You’re taking me to jail?” Lance asked as they walked up to the police station. The hood was up and shielded his face from the gusting winds.

Keith climbed the steps and turned on his heel, sighing. “No. I’m taking you to my work so I can rent out one of the cars. Mine’s at the shop.”

“So…jail,” he insisted.

The wind tugged on their clothes. Keith’s hair fell over his eyes.

“Got a record?”

“Just a natural fear for law enforcement and anything resembling a cage. What, I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood. 5-O was the reckoning for us.”

“I’m kinda tempted to throw you in a cell,” the alpha joked.

Couldn’t sail away in a cell— and Keith had now entered the possessive stage, fantastic.

“I will suck whatever you want for you not to do that.”

Wow, you know that did not help like ever. At all.

Shut up, Lance.

Keith snorted. “Wait at the corner. I’ll pull up in a few minutes.”

“Aw, my natural habitat. Should I show some skin, ask if you’re looking for a good time?”

“Do that and you will go into a cell.”

“You’re hardcore, man.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith rushed through the department to the underground level and pawned off a white and blue Ford Explorer, shooting a text over to Shiro about his tardiness and to cover for him in the meantime before he drove through the security checkpoint who knew the alpha by his face and scent and let him passed without issue. He drove up the ramp and circled the block and honked the horn at Lance.

The omega braced an arm on the car and leaned in, “You want some drugs, man?”

To fuck with him, Keith blared the sirens and startled the omega into a near heart attack.

Lance hopped in and awed with a child-like curiosity at the interior of the car and the power of sitting shotgun in a police vehicle.  Cars minded their blinkers. None dared to speed through a yellow light. And all maintained a respectable distance from the car, almost as though getting bumper to bumper with it would lay them under Keith’s radar. Lance got one hell of a kick when Keith flashed the sirens to speed through a red.

Under Lance’s direction, Keith pulled the Ford to the curb of a condo complex. Flowers and lush green bushes decorated the small area of grass and dirt. Tall iron gates bordered the perimeter.

Lance jumped out and mounted the curb.

Keith rolled down the window, poking his head out. “Hey. File a report.”

The omega shifted his weight from leg to leg. “Doubt anyone would look into it if I did.”

“I will,” he said over the soft hum of the Ford’s engine.

He doubted a century with Lance would fail to provide an immunity to his crooked, lady-killer (and guy killer in this case) grin. “You’re cute. Though if I might add a suggestion, tone down the lone ranger vibe. That’s only hot in movies.”

“I don’t wanna catch you on the streets again. Got it?”

“Another strike out,” Lance clutched his chest and winced. “You’re slaying my ego, man.”

Shit, if anyone struck out if was Keith. Couldn’t even make it up to bat.

Silence ensued, its weight and voiceless meaning impacted them both of the inevitable end of their conversation. Total game over. No second replay.

Nice fantasy but the real world didn’t wait for the clock to strike midnight.

Keith looked out the windshield as one hand gripped the bottom of the steering wheel, then looked at Lance’s brown face and blue eyes radiant when the clouds crawled out of the sky and let the sun break through. Toned down the inner whining of his alpha and said, “Good luck with everything.”

“Ditto, Keith,” Lance nodded and saluted, “Have a donut in my memory.”

He laughed before he could control it, lips wide and teeth showing. “Eat shit. Dunkin Donuts isn’t the only thing we eat.”

“So you’re not going to get a dozen right after this?”

Keith turned his expression stern. “Go inside.”

Lance didn’t have enough sense to gag and smother his grin of victory. “Alright, officer.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

“You’re late,” Shiro said from his desk the moment Keith walked into the department with a dozen donuts and a cup carrier with four coffees. He wore brown boots, blue jeans, and a black tucked in polo over his police issued windbreaker. Grey colored his eyes, like the mist sitting at the peaks of mountains at dawn.

Shiro, his oldest and only brother and his biggest motivator and competitor. In the areas Keith lacked like social grace, a warm smile for everyone, and an uncanny inclination to say the right thing to anyone in need every time;  Shiro excelled with excess. Model looks, a body builder’s physique, and a heart sweeter and warmer than apple pie— Keith had a lot to look up to and a plenty to resent but that lasted for so long. Again Shiro’s heart was purer than a golden lab so disliking Shiro was a real challenge.

Guy was a heartthrob plus an actual heart.

Keith offered him a cup of Joe, saying. “Yea. I had a thing. I texted you asking you to cover for me, didn’t you get it?”

“I had my phone on silent.”

“Shiro,” Keith groaned. “What the fuck.”

“What, Coran is very stern about his no phone calls during briefing. Are those donuts for me?” Shiro’s greedy sight fixed on the box in his other hand.

The alpha reached only to have Keith jerk it out of range.

“Not anymore. And Coran got mad last time because your ringtone was _Candy Shop_. Everyone told you to change it and you wouldn’t because you’re a loser.  Anyway, did he give me and Pidge anything?”

“No. He wants to talk to you two.” Shiro made another pass and failed to Keith’s cobra-fast reflexes. “Can I please have a donut?”

A talk in LT’s office?

“Shit,” Keith cursed and tried to think pass last night for any slip ups.

 Far as he could remember, last week was the regular serving of douchy alphas. Maybe a few omegas fell under his radar but they knew to simmer down and accept the ticket and cooperative to Keith’s questions. It the whole reason why every major city had an alpha divsion in its precinct, betas and omegas followed just fine with the rules and fellow human law enforcement but alphas rarely did.

Against non-alphas, they could hand out serious damage regardless of their strength as an alpha. Biology benefited alphas with a higher dosage of strength, endurance, and pain tolerance. Humans had a better odds shooting down one than engaging alphas physically. That was where alphas like Keith and Shiro stepped in to prevent such an outcome and spare a life if they could.

“Get your greedy hands off my donuts.” Keith batted Shiro’s massive, sugar seeking hands.

“But donut, Keith. Donuts.” Shiro pouted, jutting his lower lip out, the expression so contrasting and juvenile on a face so rugged and masculine. “Please. I could die today and you’ll have to live with the memory of denying me of my one wish. Can you live with that?

Scratch that sweeter than apple pie bullshit, Shiro was a dick.

“I hate you. Take one, demon.”

Shiro smiled, rubbing his palms together in a gesture highly reminiscent of Mr. Burns after he concocted a devilish plan to exploit workers and heighten his payroll. “You’re the best brother in the world.”

“I’m your only brother and I know when you’re buttering me up. But I’ll take the compliment anyway.”

His brother plucked a sticky glazed donut and licked the sugar off his finger. “So what did you do now?” He asked as he chewed. “Shoot anyone recently? Cause property damage.”

Before you got the wrong idea, Keith only discharged his weapon when his life or the lives of others were in peril except for two or three instances.

“The gun malfunctioned.”

Malfunctions happened all the time, the fact that the alpha in said incident was mouthing off to Keith and Pidge and just beaten his mate with his dull fists had nothing on the matter. Besides, the bullet hit the fleshy section of his outer thigh. Totally nonlethal but one hell of a bitch to remove. Pidge’d seen the gun go off prematurely or that was how the report went and no one in the department questioned it.

When cops banded, you were in a whole of hurt and laws were neglected.

“There’s some bull in your shit,” Shiro commented, smirking at the excuse which popped quite frequently in cases.

“Like your gun never malfunctioned,” he scoffed in disbelief.

Even apple pie Shiro had his own trends of vigilantism.

“In the beginning, maybe. Can’t do that too much now if I want that promotion. Remember that, Keith.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yea, yea. Bust cases, not people .Also Pidge crashed the cruiser, so that property damage falls on her. Why does everyone blame me for that?”

“Dunno. Seems like you. You crashed your first bike, remember?”

“Shut up, boy scout.”

Shiro swirled in his chair and asked his partner scribbling over some paperwork two desks away. “Ulaz, am I a boy scout?”

Ulaz grinned from his paperwork. “Pretty much, Shiro,” the alpha answered.

Ulaz was tall, lean, and blonde with a voice smoother and darker than Tim Curry.

“Hey.” Shiro protested. “We’re a team. You’re supposed to take my side.”

He shrugged his shoulder lazily. “I call them as I see them, Shiro, and you’re the Mr.Rogers of this department.”

“We’re not friends anymore, Ulaz.”

Ulaz looked down at his paperwork and hummed. “Sure, buddy. We still on for brunch?”

“Oh hell yea. You, me, and Denny’s grand slam.”

“Shiro,” Keith started, “you have never sounded any gayer than you did right there.”

“Leave my bromance alone, Keith.”

“Keith wouldn’t understand our bro-love,” Ulaz said as he and Shiro made dreamy eyes at one another, going as far as to trade flirty winks and air kisses, to cement their commitment to the joke.

“We’re related,” he argued.

“Bro-love trumps actual brothers,” Ulaz explained.

“I’m telling your wives about your office romance.”

“Allura and I are engaged. The wedding’s not for a year so you’ll have to tell my fiancée about my office romance which Allura totally supports if you ever bothered to meet her.”

This again.

 Ever since Shiro took the knee and planted a dazzling rock on Allura’s finger he’d been hounding Keith to do a formal meet and greet with Allura’s large family before the wedding. And as thrilled as he was for Shiro and from what he gathered on their interaction on social media they were the perfect couple. They were what most people strived for. The dream. The vision of a wife with a body and a brilliant mind, plus a career as a patient elementary school teacher. The boyishly handsome but adoring husband who faithfully returned each night with love and lust. The magnetic bond between them that blossomed in spite of the fact both were alphas and very strongly opinionated ones at that.

The dream, man. Their future had a house in the suburbs, white picket fence, a gold lab, two to three kids, and god help Keith a minivan with a stroller and a booster seat.

Meanwhile the one omega Keith bonded pathetically close within the matter of mere hours was taken and out of his fuck-king league. Like Keith was Pluto and Lance was Earth, that was the precise measurement of it. The painfully acute truth of his chances with the dude.

And for references the distance between Pluto and Earth was 4.67 billion miles. At the most closet, the number dropped to 2.66 billion miles.

In his early twenties, marriage and a bond was the farthest thing on his mind but each day without a mate, each day he saw his brother smiling stupidly on the phone with Allura, brought into light that he could end up alone at one point. Alone was cool now but at forty with his friends knotted up and lazier with their kids and families, it looked less desirable.

“I’ll meet her at the wedding. Look I know she’s fine, you literally like and share all of her Facebook pictures. I see them every time I log in. It’s lame.”

“You’re butthurt,” Shiro said.

Overhearing Shiro’s sass, Ulaz slapped his knee and howled in laughter behind his desk.

Keith turned and scolded. “Ulaz, stop teaching Shiro insults.”

“But it’s funny.”

“No.”

Pidge walked in low heeled boots, comfy jeans, and a plain polo that pooled loosely around her petite waist. Her belt had her badge clipped and a silver 9mm holstered.

She clapped Keith on the back. “Oh. I know that tight little body anywhere. Those better be _I’m late and I love you, Pidge_ donuts.”

“They are.” Keith offered her coffee and free food.

Pidge took a sip and moaned in bliss. “If I was a man, I would take your little booty into the breakroom and ravish it.”

“But I don’t bottom,” he said with stage fear.

The tiny alpha smiled lecherously and played on a Southern accent. “You will with me, boy.”

Ulaz planted his feet and launched himself over. The wheels squeaked under his heavy weight as he rolled to Keith.  He lifted the top. “Mind if I munch on your donuts?”

Keith forfeited the box, seeing no point in arguing about their freeloading. “You guys need to start pitching in. I always buy the food.”

“Yea, Shiro. Chip in,” Ulaz accused as he eyed the collection of pastries.

Shiro snatched a glazed donut that Ulaz was eyeing. “That milkshake I was gonna buy you? Off the table.”

Ulaz grabbed a long john instead. “Aw, but dad you promised.”

“I am not the dad of the group.”

“Yes you are. You’re the dad. Coran is like the weird uncle,” Pidge laughed.

“I’m twenty-seven.”

“Shut up, dad.”

 

[x]

 

 

Fully caffeinated and stuffed with fluffy donuts, Keith and Pidge walked at a snail’s pace to Coran’s office in an attempt to delay the inevitable verbal warfare they were about to suffer from.

“So before we go play the sacrificial lamb, what’s with the smell? Is that why you weren’t here this morning?”

“What smell?” Keith pretended there wasn’t an obvious scent buried under layers upon layers of cologne.

The tiny alpha curled her lips smugly. “C’mon, man. I’m a woman. I know when I smell another omega.”

“It’s not what you think.”

She brought her hand up in a universal gesture of _no judgment_. “Look I’m not gonna give you shit if you got things going on in your pants but let a sister know. Dets, my friend. I need them. So you fucked right?”

“No.”

Pidge called him out playfully. “Bull.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“But you smell all…done up and everything.”

“You can seriously smell it.” Keith tugged on his collar and sniffed for any residual traces of Lance. To his sensitive and aroused alpha, Lance’s honey scent still clung to him but he knew the smell was minimal to pass under everyone else’s radar. “I put on a shit ton of cologne.”

“Again, woman,” Pidge gestured to herself in answer. “We notice everything. Everything. Or maybe it’s that whole unbonded thing. You smell others way better.”

To find mates and all that, yay biology.

“Guy was bonded,” Keith cut to it.

She looked at him in confusion. “What? Your alpha though.”

Keith rolled his shoulders in a callous manner, not wanting to elaborate on his alpha unsanctioned bonding attempts. No point, honestly. His alpha attached to Lance way too fast and he didn’t want to let the attraction go. “He’s stupid. Not like that’s news to anyone.”

Reading the subtext of hurt in Keith’s voice, Pidge rubbed his arm. “That sucks. Really. Sorry things couldn’t work out.”

“All the good ones right…” Keith said to bring back some levity.

“Yea, gay or taken,” Pidge nodded. “Hence why we’re one the gay side of that equation. Well it probably not the same but you’re my platonic mate.”

“So heterosexual, I’m touched.”

“One more thing, did you fuck up?” Pidge asked once they stopped outside Coran’s office. The blinds were drawn so they had a few more seconds to spare.

“Oh so I’m the reason we’re getting the call? What happened to that straight love?”

“Oh so it would naturally be _me_ is what you’re saying?”

“I think whatever I say will be used against me.”

“Yup. Best for you not to say anything and agree with me.”

“Fine. I agree. Let’s get the ass spanking moving.”

They walked in and Coran was on the line with someone, legs crossed over the other as he reclined back in his chair and scratched his rust red beard. He quietened down, humming to whoever was speaking. The two alphas wordlessly took a seat and waited for him to wrap up the conversation.

“Alright. Thank you. See you this Sunday on the court,” Coran laughed and hung up the receiver.

“Everything good, sir?” Pidge asked.

Age and character matured the thin skin around Coran’s eyes, formed lines around his mouth whenever he laughed or smile. He wore a blue tie and a plain white shirt with his blazer hooked on the back of his chair.

Coran massaged his temples, writing a note to himself before he clicked the pen and tossed it. “Oh yea. Just politics and such. Nothing to worry about yet. So Keith we missed you at the briefing.”

Keith straightened. “Sorry, LT. Something—“

Coran waved off the apology. “Hey. It happens. No big deal. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you late to anything. Thought hell froze over.”

“So I should do it more often?”

Coran chuckled. “Well if you ever want to move in the future, no. But that’s not why I called you guys in and I’ll get it out of the way, this isn’t a lecture. So relax.”

Pidge groaned in relief. “Thank you.”

“Oh don’t thank me. I’m giving you two a pup to train.”

Pidge’s short lived joy morphed into annoyance. “What?”

Keith fought the urgent need to make a comment. “Who?”

“It gets better. Any of you know a Matt?”

“Fuck,” Pidge dropped her head.

“Who’s Matt?” Keith asked, not in the know.

“Matt Holt. Pidge’s brother. His marks are great but…as alpha material he’s lacking. I need you to toughen him up.”

“Why not Shiro?”

“We got some leads on Zarkon and Paladin, Shiro and Ulaz are working them to see what turns up. Shiro can’t manage patrols and a case, plus a pup,” Coran said.

You wanted to know the thorn in Alpha Division side then look no further than Zarkon and the White Paladin. Heavy-hitters. Puppy alphas ran gangs. Mutts ran an organization and Zarkon and Paladin were at each other’s throat for the throne, for the profit, the drugs.

Zarkon and Paladins were no more than pups when Coran entered the force. Years later they owned the better half of Chicago. Half the drugs or firearm illegally traded passed through their hands. To get a trail on them was monumental.

Coran sighed, “I can hearing the gears turning in your head. Shiro’s on point for now. Your task is to get Matt from pup to alpha. And you’re the best alpha for the job. I’m countin on you to give me another strong alpha for our unit.”

“I will, sir.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance felt like a child.

Being literally dropped out in front of his brother’s house by the world’s least likely cop, with a face crafted up with anarchic runes and forbidden voodoo magic and a golden heart that it wouldn’t be unfathomable to imagine Keith pulling odd hours and sleeping at the office just so the streets could be a little more sound, did not help.

Did the universe really need to throw a lifeline in the form of a cop who honestly put his former mate to shame?

Instead of remembering his broken bond and the fact he would have to move all his shit, talk to Lotor about the lease since both their names were on it, and go to the process of finding somewhere to crash while he house hunted— his omega thought _hey, guess who’s single and ready to mingle with a very pretty alpha. Also let’s throw ourselves at him because Lotor never smelled that sublime._

Which Lance painfully struck out on. Any confidence he had was now burning in a rumble.

Good move there, genius.

Last thing Lance needed was a relationship. A roll in the hay, maybe, but the big C and E, commitment and exclusive hell no.

Anyway Lance had walked his dejected ass to the door and rang the bell. Hunk answered the door and let him in without a single question and now Lance sat in his bedroom with his mate, Shay, as he went over last night events.

Wisely, he omitted the part where he got jumped and spent a night with another alpha seeing as Shay and Hunk were the most empathic people he knew and would feel this slight as a additional nail in the a coffin. An additional reason to coddle Lance and kiss his cuts and bruises and it was taking a lot of him and his pride to be here and admit he couldn’t handle it with his usual care-free manner.

Besides, there would be a manhunt for one alpha. Made little sense to have another for some random dude who clipped him short a cell phone and a hundred bucks.

Shay hugged him when he finished. Lance managed not to crack a joke, he hated somber moments especially if he was at the crux of it

Hunk had a different response. He walked on his knees off the mattress and out the room, declaring, “I’m grabbing my Glock.”

The comment jarred Lance from his internal musing where he took inventory on his post-bond and post-mate body and noticed a glaring lack of pain. Sure he had some but it was surprisingly superficial. There should be— if we were speaking about physical wounds— an open gash in his chest with his heart pumping and his bones exposed, like Lotor and him were a thing for a while but there sat no more than an inch deep, hair-thin cut.

Lance glanced up from his hands, it seemed the only place to look while he recited his sob story cause he had balls but not the balls to watch people pity, and made a face at Shay.  “Wait. Hunk has a gun, when did Hunk get a gun? Why does he have one?”

“We don’t have one,” Shay said, wondering herself the same thing. She watched the door and they both heard Hunk’s thumping steps and heavy body.

She turned back to Lance, nose scrunching in response to encountering a new smell, but before the omega could ask about it Hunk marched in

He pumped the shotgun with a coolness matched by a veteran marksman in a game of paintball. “Let’s go.”

Unpermitted, Lance’s lips quirked into a smile, “That’s a Nerf gun.”

“It’s gonna feel like the real thing when I’m done. Hoe’s gonna have holes in places he don’t want,” Hunk said darkly, pumping the yellow-orange plastic gun to cement his menacing promise.

This was what he needed. No fucking tissues,  no let us watch empowering chick-flicks about moving on, no singing _I will survive_ at the top of our lungs so we could pretend a broken heart— no matter the severity of the fracture— didn’t hurt.

He needed his family. Needed to know broken bond or not, they had his back and would wreck his ex-mate shit if Lance asked.

“Please. I’m the one who kicked your ass in _Call of Duty_.”

“We need to call Allura,” Hunk went for his phone and balanced the barrel on his shoulder.

Lance kicked off the covers and intercepted Hunk, blocking him with his front while he pocketed the cell and passed it to Shay. “Oh my god, no. Lotor’s body will be on the news _today_ if you tell her.”

“We could call in favors,” Hunk suggested next.

“Favors? Who the fuck are we gonna call Luis, tell him to overcharge Lotor when he comes in for an oil change.”

“He’s an asshole.”

Yea, Lotor was but Lance wasn’t totally blameless right?

Two people made or broke a relationship.

Maybe Lance could’ve tried harder. Had dates where it was about them and not work, not bills, no the grieves of adult life. Probably could’ve talked more outside of conversation about the car, or the fight.

Maybe Lotor stopped giving a shit because he saw Lance do it. Saw Lance was seeing past the rose-color lenses when they started crushing in high school. Saw that it was well time to trade Lance in before Lance beat him to it.

Like look not even a day and Lance wanted Keith last night. Still wanted him now and it wasn’t on account of his body realigning its hardware from mated and bonded to single; cause if Lance had saw him on the street with his mate he would’ve wanted him then too.

So that bullshit of him being in a spot and not in the right frame of mind, bull. It wasn’t classy or smart but Lance wasn’t at the will of his omega. He could think for himself and thought Keith was so, so pretty with his anti-knight in shiny armor approach.

Like he felt bad that he wasn’t feeling so emotionally devastated in the least.

How fucked was he— he felt pangs, felt if he dropped a rock in well of his mind that the fall wouldn’t be long at all but the list ended there. Naturally last night the pain vibrated profoundly but with the dust settling and his mind clear, it pulsed like a distant star. A minor annoyance.

Kind of said lot of how incompatible they were from the start if this was the most his body and mind could muster like they traded folded notes and not the three years together. Three years of sharing a bed, sharing their body, bonding themselves for a future

“Look it was coming. Things haven’t been the same for a while. Like it sucks but I’m not…I dunno,” he rubbed the back of his neck, fishing for a correct description of the lack of anguish brewing in his gut. “I’m not _there_ like how some people get.”

“He’s right, babe,” Shay assured Hunk as she shuffled toward the edge of the bed and massaged his back.

“He kicked you out of the house,” his younger brother pressed, still valiantly holding the torch for retribution.

“Yea. But I kinda told him I faked it every time we had sex and that James Bond called and he wanted his crappy accent back. I’m pretty sure I said some other funny shit. I only remember those cause he got piss as hell.”

“Christ, Lance,” Hunk snorted into his hand.

“When I think about it now, I made some good comebacks. But aside all that fun stuff, I was wondering if I could crash until I get things settled.”

“Dude of course you can. We got a guest room that no one uses. It’s yours for as long as you want.

Shay agreed, “Whatever you need Lance. A place, a ride, somewhere to dispose of a body.”

Lance looked between the couple. “You guys are watching too much murder shows. I’m starting to worry.”

“Not like we would murder you. Just maybe someone we don’t like,” Hunk rationalized.

“Yea. We’re civil people. A body or two isn’t bad. Ten bodies and then you’re that guy.”

Pawning his cell from Shay, Hunk touched the screen and checked the time. “Crap, I gotta get ready for work.”

“No problem.”

“We’ll talk more after work, okay.”

His brother’s eyes twinkled with a brotherly warmth, decades of messing around the house, stealing food while mom cook, chasing Allura with mud on their hands, then sitting on the floor and playing with Allura’s stiff Barbies’ while Godzilla terrorized the pink dream house and the pink convertible. The memories glittered brightly in those honey colored eyes.

Family, they’re good to have around for the shitty times.

“Thanks again,” Lance said, feeling it might be a regular thing to come out of his mouth in the coming weeks. Everyone was leading a helping hand and Lance could not cope.

Less than a second after Hunk collected his clothes and padded into the bathroom, Shay pulled on Lance’s arm and whispered under her breath.

“Alright, I have to know—why do I smell another alpha on you?”

Lance chewed on his lip. “About that…”

 

 

[x]

 

“You were what?” Shay nearly shouted.

Lance hushed her and listened for Hunk as he showered for work. No impending footfalls came their way so they’re in the clear. “Chill.”

“So let me get this straight,” Shay dropped her head into her palm, “you were jumped, you stood the night at a stranger’s place, you tried to hook up with said stranger who is a cop, and you did not bother to file a report.”

Well if you said it like _that_ then yes, it came off as slightly moronic or deranged.

“In hindsight, not my greatest moment but hey, everything worked out. I wasn’t murdered. Ho, ha the whole world works.”

“You should’ve called us,” the omega groaned.

“True but—“

“But you wanted to be stubborn and moody by yourself.”

“So you’re mad, I get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow Keith's pinning so hard...guess you could call him a pine tree... I'll walk myself out.
> 
>  
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twitter: angry_latte


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first forgive me for this short chapter (i know when does that ever happen). this and chapter four were originally one whole chapter but it was too long so i cut it.
> 
> if i have time later this week I'll try to edit chapter four and get it out early for you all! but i hope you still enjoy this one even though it's so short.
> 
> and thanks again to everyone for the love and support!!

Keith’s boot drilled across the titled floor, harsh taps to amplified his weight and standing as a strong alpha. He crossed his arms under his chest next, his forearms flexed. The rest of the talking he let his body do. Sharp eyes. Face found in the scrap pile at a junkyard. Badge clipped to his belt. Two standard issued 9mm in matte iron holstered in his harness. Resilient but flexible Kevlar vest, good for knives and small bullets at a distance. It minimalized his speed and flexibility, a strong point for Keith whose body was toned and lean and worked best with both on his side, but for the day’s plan neither was vital.

Plus it supported the image of—

One _bad_ looking motherfucker.

Looked like he put you in the grave and piss on it.

So Matt was kind of on edge at that point, Keith enhanced it by marching coolly in his face. Let the alpha press his weight in as well. Let him scream _I’m the wolf here, pup, remember that_.

Matt gulped.

Pidge hopped on Shiro’s desk and observed from the distance with a devious grin on her face.

Keith lowered so his nose nearly touched Matt’s and said. “Matt. I’m setting the ground rules.”

“O-okay.”

He was a pup alright, Keith thought. Other alphas at least fired a little something back. Maybe a scent, a shift in their voice, or a glare that threated to only eat some much shit. Good marks got you far if you wanted work in the lab but the field required more than knowledge and knowing your times table. Your alpha meant the difference between you on the ground or the other alpha on the ground in cuffs.

Yea, Shiro had the body and the height and when the occasion rose, his voice boomed like thunder and no one questioned his leadership. But Shiro was also the guy who would easily hand off his status and role should someone better come along.

Also, Shiro was too nice and understanding to put the boot to pups asses. He coached. Keith kicked you into the water and said swim.

So that what was he going to do.

Put Matt into the ocean and make him doggy-paddle to the shore.

But that didn’t mean Keith couldn’t have some fun.

Keith clasped his hands behind his back. “First I’m your Yoda, you’re my Luke. Train you must. Listen you will.”

Pidge made a complaint in the background, something close to the words _what a fucking nerd_.

There was too much of _alpha_ in Matt’s face for him to get an inkling that all this was done in part as a hazing ritual.

“Two, this is kinda like Fight Club. What happens in Fight Club stays in Fight Club.”

Pidge formed a make-shift cone around her mouth and announced, “That’s Vegas, dumbass.”

A few heads buried in paperwork looked up, saw the bad vibe Keith was shipping and returned to it. It was well known fact that Keith was the last guy you wanted to go _alpha_ on you.

“Third rule, ignore Pidge. I am the cobra commander of this unit and I will not tolerate insubordination,” he said.

Pidge’s commentary drifted over. “Damn, I wanna get mad about that rule but you saved it. I’ll allow it.”

Running out of witty references, Keith asked. “You got all that down pup?”

“Did you want me to write them down?”

“No. Don’t ever leave a paper trail.”

“Keith, we’re the cops. We want trails.”

“You got a firearm?”

“No.”

“Go to the second floor, Tanya will suit you up with a temp for now. You earn your wings later, okay.”

“Yes sir.” Matt saluted, even clapped his heels too.

He had his work cut out for him with this guy.

“Wow,” Pidge clapped as Matt walked off, laughing madly to herself, “ Wow. That was very lovely, Keith. Matt might shit and piss himself. Kudos.”

Keith bummed Shiro’s chair. “I figured I could have some fun.”

“Cobra Commander? ”Pidge teased.

“I borrowed that from Dane Cook.”

“It fits. You fucked up with the Fight Club reference.”

The alpha looked up at his spit-fire partner. “Pidge, did you forget rule three?”

“Fuck you, Keith.”

 

 

[x]

 

Keith started Matt slow. Instead of a torrential ocean, he threw the pup into a pond. A guy pulled a red, the cameras hooked up on the corners paparazzi-ed his plates and car but a traffic violation was an easy picking. Plus that guy could’ve cause a serious crash and warranted Keith blaring the sirens and herding his car to the curb.

Keith tapped the wheel. “The guy blew a red, he’ll probably give you shit. You give it right back, okay?”

“Didn’t the cameras—“

“Yes but he doesn’t know that. Now go.”

“Just me?”

“Yea. Get his information and I’ll run it.”

Matt looked at the Honda parked in front of them, breathed until his nerves stopped gnawing at his ankle and hopped out. Walked around the hood in his best cop stroll.

“A traffic stop, really?” Pidge commented from the back.

“You’d rather I take him to Galra country,” he countered. “That way we can all get shot.”

“Yea, god forbid we do something really cool like shoot our guns and lock up bad guys.”

Keith looked at Pidge through his rearview mirror,” Coming from the person who didn’t get stabbed the last time we patrolled Galra.”

“I told you he had a knife,” she protested.

Keith scowled and said with an exasperated slowness. “After he stabbed me.”

Pidge shot up in her seat and pointed. “No. I said it right before he stabbed you. Big difference.”

“I’m going to laugh when you get shank.”

She slumped back, kicking up her legs. “Lair. You’ll cry and avenge me.”

Matt strolled back and got in the passenger seat. Keith held his hand out expectantly for the guy’s ID and insurance provider.

“What?”

“Matt, where’s the stuff?”

“He’s looking for it.”

“Son of…“ Keith jerked the door open and marched up to the car and rapped harshly on the glass.

 The alpha rolled it down, agitated. “I fuckin’ told him—“

“Unless you want your head going through the damn windshield, you will give me your information. Not later. Now. We clear?”

“Okay, okay.”

“Move slow, bud. I like a show.”

Keith closed the car door and flashed Matt the alpha’s driver’s license and the white slip of insurance. “He told me he had to look for it.”

“He was bullshitting you, Matt. You can’t let alphas know you back down or they’ll string you along. Now run it and give him a ticket.”

“He’ll get piss.”

“Well I’m mad too so there.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Intoxicated laughter and the hammering of bottles in bursts of excitement and other times in belligerent disagreement flooded the bar. Someone paid the machine and set the track to Boy Epic’s _Dirty Mind._ Keith saw Lance’s face in his mind again, magma hot and mega pretty with his boyish features. Played his voice, which sounded like a downpour on green leaves, over and over again like a newly discovered song.

Ulaz and Shiro carried three beers and a basket of fries

With the caps popped, Ulaz slid over a beer to Keith and asked over the chatter. “How’s the training going?”

Keith shook out of his musings and made a face sour enough to outdo Sour Patch kids.

Shiro tried to be kind and not flat out laugh in his brother’s face but no one was that strong. Not even Shiro. No better than his brother, Ulaz chuckled too with more politeness than the other man.

 Shiro snorted, piggishly Keith decided. Faint shadows darkened his eyes after a week of thirteen hour shifts.  “He can’t be that bad.”

“He’s nice and naïve,” Keith grumbled into the opening of his beer.

“Only you would see that as a negative,” Shiro teased.

“Come on, Shiro. For patrol it’s passable but what about when he’s moved over to Galra or Volt. They’re gonna eat him alive if they don’t put a bullet in him.”

Ulaz squirted a pool of ketchup by his fries and dunked the salty tips. “Coran’s not gonna place him anywhere that heavy.”

“Still,” he said with a tone resembling a child who didn’t like the fact his favorite cartoon only showed once a week. He stole a fry from Ulaz’s plate.

“Give him time. So what was this about you being the cobra commander?”

Keith had to cup his mouth so he didn’t spit out his beer. “Is he really telling people that, oh my god. I was busting his balls.”

“So it’s true, then,” Ulaz asked with a grave, nearly grim-like seriousness. “Are you going to get the Joe’s?”

Shaking his head, Keith flipped him off. “Fuck you.”

“No, no. Yell it, Keith,” Shiro insisted. “Do it, show us the commander.”

“Com-mand-der.” Both alpha chanted, abandoning their drinks to hammer out the words and like mindless drones the rest of the patrons joined in and shouted along.

Keith attempted to perform some sort of dark magic and mold himself to the furniture to escape this hell.

—He ended up caving in to their demands. Luckily, everyone was too hammered to remember the next time.

 

 

[x]

 

 

It was during Monday’s morning debriefing that Keith understood fully the monster he unknowingly unleashed.

Coran breezed through current on-going investigations, getting a progress report from the cops working them, then he moved to regular duty distribution.

Called Hernadez and Reyes. Patrol: Archer Heights.

Called Sherman and Huang next. Patrol on downtown.

“Now the Cobra Commander and Hott. I want you to get us some usable intel on the Joe’s, got it?”

The room erupted into snickers and belly deep laughs.

Matt stood in the corner, snickering into his hand.

Maybe he wasn’t that much of a pup after all.

The room started to emptied, Keith caught Matt’s shoulder and offered him a smile that translated into _you got me good, kid, but you have a long way to go_.

“You better pray that doesn’t last, newbie,” Keith warned lightly.

Matt nodded, a cheeky grin growing, “Yea. Wouldn’t want the Joe’s to know your whereabouts.”

“Oh man, I’m taking your ass to the Northside now.”

Suddenly all his cheeky behavior diminished, eyes widening. “What’s on the Northside?”

“Trouble,” Pidge pipped up. “Now let’s go. I need my morning coffee and enough glaze in my system to induce me into a coma.”

“Finally. I can get some peace and quiet,” Keith breathed dramatically with that fuck-boy smirk, the type which invited fists and lips to his face depending on the receiver, Pidge looked close to picking her fists.

“After all the times I’ve bailed you out of social events, this is what I’m met with.”

“Oh so you forgot that time I pretended to be your boyfriend when your ex came back into town? You called me _muffin_.”

Pidge waved her arms wildly, “Sshh. Thou shall not speak of that.”

Matt put his arms up, “I’m just gonna get us a squad car. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Great. He’ll think we’re hetro for each other.”

“Am I not _boyfriend_ material, Pidge?”

“Get fucked, Keith.”

“Trying, Pidgey.”

“Yo, Keith!” Shiro beckoned as the two walked out of the debriefing room. “What are you doing Sunday?” He asked breathlessly.

 “Beating the meat, bro,” Keith answered smoothly, when his brother stared dully, Keith corrected. “Nothing. That was a joke.”

“Sorry. Brain fart.  I want you to go to a party with me.”

The alpha narrowed his eyes. “With the guys?”

“No. It’s a graduation party.”

“Shiro, we don’t know any high schoolers.” Keith grinned pointedly. “Unless you do.”

“Smartass. It’s Allura’s sister. They’re throwing her a big party. Allura invited me so I’m inviting you.”

“Why?”

“She’ll be my wife and your sister-in-law.”

“On second thought, I’m actually going to beat my meat all Sunday.”

“Keith. Please.”

“I wouldn’t know anyone that’s there,” he whined.

“We’re in the same boat. I only talk to Allura or her brothers. Please, Keith. With a cherry on top.” Shiro clasped his hands together, an inch of taking the knee like he did on that magical, romantic candle lit dinner with Allura. Where Allura got the man of her dreams and a nice but tasteful rock to evoke the envy of women and men alike; Keith was given a proverbial noose. 

There was an excellent reason Pidge bailed Keith out frequently out of awkward social gathering. It wasn’t that he was awkward— okay to a degree— but he usually spoke without thinking and half the shit he thought of involved profanity or sex jokes.

But he looked at his brother’s goofy, pleading face, the sincerity in his eyes, the actual physical want to have Keith be a part of his future family, and he buckled down. Again.

All the fight zapped out of him, shoulders slumping with surrender, he groaned. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

Keith said before Shiro could get too wild. “There better be beer. Good beer, Shiro.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twitter: angry_latte
> 
> well well i wonder who will be at that party, huh?
> 
> I'm so unoriginal, lol.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall know what's coming. i'm not very subtle.

The thing after break ups was the monumental waves of introspection which traveled down two typical roads, the cross examination of where you failed, the signs you missed, the red flags glaring a mile away, what was the catalyst. Maybe the sex was too vanilla. Maybe there was too much sex and not enough talking.

Maybe if I did this…

Maybe if we talked things through without bitterness flavoring our tongues.

That was route one, Lance drove down the other one and this one inspected oneself rather than the relationship and the actions ignored or taken to sink it. Lance wondered if he was just an unlovable person. Maybe his jokes were amusing to a point and annoying beyond another.

He could get past Lotor and him no longer being an item, again it felt a long time coming, but part of him feared Lotor would seriously be the last guy to look at him like he was something. He loved being looked at. Loved feeling he was loved. Loved the feeling of being in love with love. His family and friends loved him but romantic love carried a severe mass— when your lover dropped the L-word it was big news. Society paid less value on the love between friends and family.

Yea, of course they loved you.

Well, duh, friends sided with you and assured you that you were a one in a million.

They had too.

Your partner didn’t necessarily have to love you but they did.

So what if this was it?

He was undesirable now. Throw in his title as a rogue, which some viewed as a mutation, and his options were limited.

 Depending on how your family brought you up, breaking a bond with a mate was severely frowned upon. You had to work out your difference, not call it quits and bail. Some people refused to date a person from a broken bond, seeing as you were in a sense no longer a virgin to the whole ordeal. Others were shamed, remembering that back in the day _we worked through the bad times, kids don’t know anything about strength and endurance._

 Undesirable. Un-matable. Un-bondable.

No one was lining up in the future.

Getting over Lotor was the cake part of the equation. Lance saw the holes in their relationship and realized how much he tolerated because fights happened, people grew out of bad habits, and he didn’t want to be that controlling person who tried to make their lover something they weren’t.

So cake, really.

He ached less.

His omega mourned some days.

Their bond slipped day by day like sand in an hourglass. The first fracture was the cruelest now Lance barely noticed that he felt less and less of Lotor’s emotions, less of his alpha, less of his anger and frustration that needed the curbing of his omega. The near physic thread that telegraphed the impressions of the other’s thought lost its reception. He got pangs and minor readings. He felt Lotor’s anger, his coolness, and his unwillingness to acknowledge that their place was empty and quiet. Eventually that ceased as well.

Lance stopped thinking in plurals. No we. No us.

It was about him now. I. Me.

There was a comfort in worrying about yourself. About taking care of you first. What made you happy. What would you put up with. Figuring out you didn’t have to do that anymore.

The churning in his gut lessened.

He said Lotor’s name without thinking he might puke.

But with the time and freedom to relearn himself, Lance was starting to remember a lot of the insecurities he thought he had beaten down as a youth. They haunted him when he saw couples in the store, their scent mingled perfectly, and wondered _am I going to get that back, would I want it back._

Who was going to sweep me off my feet?

Who cared; I don’t need any sweeping.

Okay but at some point it might be nice you know.

Nice yea but romance and swooning weren’t top priority. A place was, Hunk would house him indefinitely if it came to it but Hunk had his own thing going with his girl. Cool as they were, you didn’t want to hear your brother getting wild in the bedroom. They kept it down but Shay was a vocal girl and the springs, they squeaked thunderously, and the headboard probably made a decent size dent in the wall with how rapid it tapped it.

So number uno, a place.

Two, a car. The ride he did use was registered under another name that started with the letter _L_ ,  so as of now Lance resorted to the kindness of the bus or Hunk’s off-days and bummed his Silverado off him.

Romance ranked, like what, number twenty on his list of shit he would like to change sometimes this year. Besides he handled his heat fine on his own though it was interesting to be in heat while he Hotel California’ed in his Hunk’s abode. Gratefully, the heat lasted two days instead of three to four which he usually averaged while he was with Lotor. Rubbing off, stuffing himself to the brink of madness, and medication and air purifiers to marshal the apocalyptic level of heat generated aromas thundering profusely like an enraged god helped invaluably.

But that was a problem for future Lance because present Lance was living it up at his baby sister’s high school graduation. Yea, there was a copious amount of liquor. If the young but pre-21 adults were dipping into the coolers or his mother’s fridge in the basement, no one cared too much as long as everyone was safe and responsible

Anyway the grownups— shit that included him now right — were too busy catching up on current affairs, the Cubs season, or reminiscing on days of the past. Lots of talk of _man back in the day,_ or _kids have it easy now my ma would never…_

The pre-teens and little kids chased each other around the backyard, dodging in and out of everyone’s way and occasionally tripping over that one slanted slab of concrete down the alleyway that his parents never bothered to repair.

Manny was the victim this time. The other kids ran, determined to be not it.

Lance squatted next to Manny. The little dude’s pressed his lips together so not to cry out in pain. He pulled his knee up and examined the red scrape of blood oozing out like a slug. White dust chalked his dark knee.

“How about we fix that?” Lance asked.

Manny, who was too afraid that speaking might unleash the tears, nodded wordlessly and let Lance balance him on his hip.

His tio Juan shouted, “ Lance, beer?” He showed his empty bottle. Two more of his relatives joined in and asked for another round with beer still lining a quarter of the bottle.

“Yea. I gotta take care of Manny first.”

“Tell your sister then.”

“Aye, you know how Allura is. She’ll tell me to tell you to get it.”

Juan made a drunken motion, then continued his conversation with the guys.

Lance opened the screen door and took the back stairs up to the kitchen. Allura and his mother were talking about making another beer run to the store. Lance squeezed past his sister and knocked on the locked bathroom door.

“Dude. I might be here a while. Turn back,” Hunk murmured.

“The band aids are in there. Second drawer to you, Peroxide's in the medicine cabinet.”

“Lance. Getting up is the last thing I should do.”

“What did you eat?”

“Taco Bell.”

“Hunk, you’ve brought shame on this family. No real Hispanic eats that. God is punishing you.”

“Shut. Up. Lance.”

“I really need those band aids.”

“Okay. Give me a minute.”

Lance looked at Manny and warned, “See that’s what God does to you when you eat shitty wannbe Mexican food.”

The door creaked wide by an inch. A hand hovered in the crack, a box of Spiderman’s band aid pinched between its fingers. A smell followed. An ungodly smell.

Lance snatched the box and slammed the door. “Hunk. You remember that scene in _Friday_?”

“Oh, fuck you. I’m opening the door.”

Lance ironed his hand around the knob. The door jostled in the threshold.

His mother complained by the sink, “Stop trying to lock your brother in the bathroom.”

“I’m not. I’m protecting us. Some thanks would be nice.”

His mother curled her fist and waved it in his direction with a fleeting annoyance. “I got your thanks right here.”

“Alright, alright. Allura, move your big ass.” He hip bumped Allura who had her elbows on the kitchen island as she spammed text messages on her phone.

Allura bumped back, eyes fixed on the screen. “Ma!”

“You do have a big ass, sweetheart.”

Allura looked up in betrayal. “My ass is not that big,” she defended venomously.

“Sir-Mix-A lot would disagree.”

His mother laughed, nodding in agreement, she moved over so Lance could seat Manny by the sink and ripped a sheet of paper and ran it under the faucet. He wrung out the excess and patted it gently over Manny’s furiously red knee. He winced, closing his eyes to the pain.

He repeated the process of running the towel under the water and wetting the skin until he could see the cuts cleanly. They were no wider than a needle but to a kid they felt like bullets laced with lemon.

Lance grabbed a dry paper towel and pressed it down, soaking up any excess water. He pulled out three band aids and lined them up from the base to the curve of his knee.

“All done. Want some ice cream?”

Manny cheered up instantly as Lance popped open the freezer and unwrapped a sundae cone. He lifted Manny from the counter and ruffled his curly hair.

“Thanks, Lance.”

“You did good, little man. And if anyone asks you who gave you the good stuff, you tell them only cool kids get them.”

Manny smiled and sprinted out the kitchen.

Lance opened the freezer again and got a cone for himself.

His mother made an exasperated sound at him.

“What?” He asked, crinkling the wrapper in his palm.

“Really, I made food.”

“Believe me, there’s plenty of room.” Lance patted his gut.

 Allura grumped, “I can’t eat that stuff anymore. Makes me sick.”

“And chunky.”

Hunk walked out of the bathroom, “Dude we have sundae cones?”

Lance bit through the cold chocolate shell. “Yup, want a bite?”

“Hell yea.”

His mother flung her arms out fruitlessly. “You better eat the food I made.”

“We will,” Lance and Hunk answered as the traded the cone back and forth.

“Don’t lick it. Bite it, Hunk. It’s not a dick.”

“You would make that jump. Maybe’s it a girl ice cream, you insensitive prick.”

“Hunk. Stay off of Tumblr.”

Hunk bit off a quarter of the cone and handed back to Lance who looked on with a cocktail of shock and unadulterated horror. “My ice cream,” he whimpered at the pint-size portion his brother left him with.  “Ma, did you see that? Look he barely left me anything.”

“I can kill it off for you.”

Lance recoiled, cradling the cone protectively. “This is mine.”

Gabby clunked down the stairs, shiny hair trailing behind her with her clothes formed for a growing young lady and makeup too adult for an eighteen-year-old. Her grades held up, 4.0, and she never showed up home with hickeys so mom allowed the highlighter, the foundation, the smoky eyeshadow, and the blueberry blue lipstick. Being the baby of the group helped too.

The order went like this: Allura, Lance, Hunk, and Gabby. It threw people off when they said they were related, Lance and Allura had sweet baby blues while the other two had honeycomb ambers. The reason for that was down to simple genetics, they had different dads.

 His mother first mate, Javier, and bond failed after two years. They mated because his mom was prego with Allura. By the time they broke it off Lance was baking in the oven. A year later, their second dad Reyes showed and by his mother’s words it _clicked_. The passion of love. The one you’re destined to find, mijo, remember the stories about true mates and all they’re real. I found them.

He didn’t know about that but Lance wasn’t around his bio dad to know whether or not he should miss the guy. And Javier never bothered with a postcard or a text all these years later, so Lance didn’t miss him or wonder how things would’ve been if it worked between them.

He was glad.

There wouldn’t be Hunk, his little brother who he’d bottled fed when his mom felt Lance was strong enough to hold a baby.

There would be no Gabriella, his baby girl who he gave piggybacks to until this day, who he played Barbies with her in the backyard and followed Gabby’s strict creative direction to the tee.

They’re not a clean puzzle. By the math, they’re half brothers and sisters. Lance and Allura had Javier’s golden brown Mexican skin and his blue eyes. Hunk and Gabby were darker, Cuban, and showcased soft honey eyes. But they’re a good fit, closer together than most families were with their siblings, and maybe things had to fall apart, had to get painful, for the good to come in.

Sometimes things had to fail because something better was on the way.

“Why are you guys all here?” She questioned, seeing everyone gathered in the kitchen.

“I was talking to your sister and then the boys showed up. Is Jake coming?”

Lance crunched into the waffle cone, asking with his mouth full of soggy waffle bits. “Whoa, who’s Jake?”

Gabby ignored him, “I think so.”

“Hello. Earth to Gabriella. Who’s Jake?”

“A boy.”

“Accurate, what kind of boy?”

She blushed. A bad sign.

“Hunk. Get the shotgun.”

“He’s a nice boy. Cute too,” his mother assured. “He’s going to the same university as your sister.”

Oh no. The women were banding together.

“Hunk. Get my baseball bat. The wooden one.”

“Lance,” Gabby whined. “Don’t embarrass me by threating to break his kneecaps.”

“It’s either kneecaps or the gun. Make your choice.”

Allura chirped in giddy excitement, oblivious to their conversation, and trotted out the kitchen to the living room. The front door creaked open, followed by a girlish gasp and lip locking. Safe to assume Shiro was here. The couple walked hand in hand to the kitchen. Allura’s  shimmery lip gloss smeared on Shiro’s lips.

Gabby and his mother perked up real fast and waved sweetly at the man. Understandable because Shiro was Chris Evans and Bruce Lee combined, handsome and rugged but highly trained in the arts of disabling a man.

Lance checked him out once out of respect for Allura.

“ _Hello_ ,” Shiro waved, still testing out the language. It was so sweet of him to learn so he could talk to the family, Lot of the younger generations were fluent in English and Spanish but the older ones had trouble with it and talked in Spanish. “ _How is everyone?”_

Pride beamed brightly on Allura’s face, she nodded encouragingly at Shiro to tell him he spoke correctly and didn’t accidentally call anyone an insult.

His mom smiled, “ _Good. Your accent is getting better,_ Shiro.”

“Thanks. Allura’s actually an excellent teacher.”

Allura’s smile turned very sensual as she grinned widely, full teeth on display. “Well you’re a good student.”

Hunk and Lance made loud, obnoxious gagging sounds. Gabby smacked them both on the arm to shut up their mock vomit.

“Well I have to check in on your father,” his mother said, tucking a roll of paper towel under her armpit. “Make sure he doesn’t burn meat like last time.”

Lance stopped her. “Before you go, tio Juan wanted a few beers.”

“Aye, Lance.” She went to the fridge and grabbed a few and walked back outside.

“So Shiro, question,” Lance prompted.

“As long as it’s not about how to trick the cops, I’ll answer.”

“It’s not. When are you gonna knock up Allura? You know fill her tank with your seed and all.”

Shiro choked.

Allura turned and gasped at him. “Lance.”

“What, I want a niece or nephew. Get pregnant, girl.”

Shiro recovered from his coughing laugh, “I think it’s a little soon to talk kids, right?” He looked to Allura’s blushing face.

“You wanna talk kids in front of my siblings?”

“Oh please,” Gabby huffed. “We heard you two getting it on last time.”

“Oh yea,” Hunk recalled. “Fourth of July. You guys got lit.”

“And sexual behind the dumpster,” Lance added. “Even in a drunk stupor, you found Shiro’s balls.”

Shiro covered his eyes, cheek a mad pink.

“What about Hunk? You’re not asking Shay this,” Allura accused in attempts to bounce the limelight off her and Shiro drunk sexcapade behind the house.

“Oh we’ve been trying for a month or two. You know how hard it is to get a girl pregnant when you want a kid? It’s a legit thing. Like her vagina knows or something. And no offense but with Lance around, the loving has toned down a little.”

“So that wild monkey sex is _toned down_?” Lance teased. “I hate to hear how it is when I’m not there.”

“We’re not that loud.”

He made a face that argued strongly against that, “Nah. You are.”

“You can let us know. I thought we were subtle.”

“And how exactly do I bring that up in the morning, _hey guy while you’re getting on your 50 shades of gray could you chill on the pornstar moans_?”

“Shay does not sound like a porn star.”

“I wasn’t talking about Shay.”

A second passed, then Hunk got it and scowled malevolently at his older brother. “I’m grabbing the gun.”

“Do it and you declare war on me and my country. Can you handle another war, Hunk? Your ankle has never been the same.”

“You think I’m scared of you. I played the new _Resident Evil_ on the hardest level. They’ll need to make two graves, one for your body and the second for your ego.”

“No Nerf Wars,” the girls shouted, the party poopers they were. Lance shot them once. Once.

Okay it was in the eye.

And fine, he laughed really hard.

And maybe he misfired another time to get Gabby for shits and giggles while she was taking selfies with her friends.

Other than that, Lance was an excellent marksman with a few casualties of war on his record.

Shiro’s phone went off. He answered, turning away from the conversation. “Hey. Where are you? The street’s Mulligan.” Shiro covered one ear. “Okay you went too far. Who’s in the car with you— Pidge? Look, I’ll stand outside.”

He ended the call, “My brother can’t find it. I’ll be back.” Shiro walked out the front door.

A minute later the door creaked open and several footsteps padded through the living room to the kitchen. Two people followed Shiro one was chick with frame smaller than his baby sister and orange soda hair. The other was Keith…

“Keith?” Lance blinked.

Keith was as bewildered, “What the fuck, Lance?”

Wait, Keith?

Keith, Keith?

Fine ass Keith with voice like black leather and an ass that didn’t quit?

Lance’s thoughts limited down to one singular word— _rabiar._

Correction one phrase.

_Yo quiero rabiar._

_Yo quiero rabiar._

And wasn’t that just the damnest thing for his disgruntled knight in pitch black armor to show up like a conjured entity and elicit the sensation— a vivid, breathing one; no metaphors or similes here kiddies— of a firestorm within the breakable structure of his ribcage. Bone was tough and omegas and alphas made tougher by biology alone but their bodies had boundaries.

So it was a _terrifying_ feeling. Fire in his heart. Not the passions of love or the flame of desire but the fire that took lives, gave firefighters a purpose and a demanding career, required by law that all places of businesses to have multiple and accessible fire extinguishers, scared adults into teaching you the one to three steps of stop, drop, and roll.

Remember you didn’t put your hand on the stove. Didn’t stick your fingers in your food the second it relocated from the oven to the plate.

Caution, children.

Caution.

Back to the word— rabiar. Spanish was a delicate language, which each word could hold several meanings and expression depending on the pitch and context, but Lance wasn’t here to give you a lesson in the language. Only a lesson in the sole word.

Put plainly it meant to— _thirst, burn, rage, go wild._

How appropriate too since a _thirst_ of insurmountable mass lodged in his throat. Suddenly it was the Sahara desert up in this joint with the windows cracked wide and a nice Chicago breeze ruffling his mother’s summertime curtains. The sheer ones to let the light in, where you could see the neighbors as they walked down the block with their little dogs and loud voices.

 He mentioned burning, right; so we could skip that one.

Rage, well if you meant to rage  along the lines of power slamming Keith to the ground and stripping him of all his clothes and mounting that stallion with no care for extensive prepping and no rubber and a total disregard for formalities like _hi Keith, can I ride that mount into the Ice Age_ ; then Lance was _raging_. The little boner that could.

On second thought, strike that.

Lance didn’t measure small in that department.

Okay losing focus again which would be an issue if life had future plans to toss Keith in his path at the least likeliest of place.

Final one— to go wild.

Didn’t know what was wilder than thirsting and considering an alpha who helped him in a bind, tossed his ass back on the offer of a casual and easy thing, and then went to the effort to see him home safely with a promise to apprehension his jumper.

Crazy talk.

Abnormal, honestly if he thought about the first time Lotor even breathed in his general direction and Lance blushed violently then and asked a Magic 8 Ball whether he and Lotor would ever be a thing. The ball answered, not likely.

Magic my ass.

There were butterflies especially when they kissed in his room— his first kiss with a guy and not the last. Girls, sort of but Lance was faithful. Do not allow the whole flirt persona to lead you astray, Lance struck with people. Loyal to a fault.

But this whole thirst bullshit?

Thirsting, not metaphorically, his tongue felt parched. Bone dry. Tumbleweed blowing by a barren wasteland with a sun-bleached skull, type of dryness. Really, someone pass him a bottle of water.

Wanting to fuck him like a whore…Look during his heat, Lance was not cordial. All pretense of sex shipped off to space. If you were his alpha then you had one fucking job and that was to keep that shaft solid and thick until he had to force out his climaxes. He got slutty then. The remainder of the time, Lance was perfectly tame. Maybe a little dick grabbing or ass spanking, he was a man and he liked PDA to a certain degree. Little displays of ownerships and all. Everyone went home excited and hot.

So it buzzed him out to be in such a state of discord. To be together and torn apart.

Existing. De-existing.

Typing forward. Hitting the backspace button.

Plus. Minus.

The fuck was he supposed to do now, smelling like an easy prey; shake Keith’s hand and mention to his family _oh yea after Lotor kicked me out I got jumped, Keith helped. Oh and I made a pass at him. Turned me down. So beer anyone?_

Just don’t look at him, Lance thought.

He looked.

Shit.

Stupid, hot cop alpha with his so last year leather jacket and biker boots.

Look even Wolverine ditched the look, when was Keith going to get the memo that leather jackets and boots were so not hot. Ugh, tool.

Ugh, Mr. I-Act-Like-A-Bad-Boy-For-The-Tail-Really-I’m-A-Marsmellow-Inside.

Dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol i'm a tease. 
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twitter: angry_latte


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not an asshole this chapter. sorry for the delay, i had plans at the last minute.
> 
> also this fic is almost done! i have a scene to add for chapter 11 and chapter 12 to do but I'm almost there.

Nice.

Spectacular.

Lance was here.

If you couldn’t guess it was not nice because Lance was the god damn ocean and he was currently pulling Keith _in_ by standing there. Golden brown. Masculine in his body. Boyish in his icy blue eyes. Looking good with soft lips and white teeth. Empty hands. Smelling like the stuff heaven poured in the heart of flowers, the sweetness in chocolate, the crystal sparkle of Chicago’s fresh snow in the dawn.

And it was not spectacular cause he remembered Lance in his place, in his clothes, in his shower, his hands on the meal he cooked, on the plates in the sink, his imprints still ghosting on his sofa like a physical force.

Plus everyone kind of side-eyed them like they knew instantly something was up and like all mysteries, everyone wanted it _CSI_ style. But you didn’t get to be a hell of a cop without undergoing some cruel interrogations yourself so Keith’s mouth was a vault. Good luck getting anything straight from him. Pleading the fifth. 

Be cool, Keith.

Be ice.

You have been stabbed, chased down, bullets zipping on your heel, Keith. Man, get it together.

Lance may be the rounds in a sniper rifle but you’re bulletproof, Iron Man, Man of Steel. Think Superman let bullets hurt him, hell no, so buck up.

And don’t look unless you wanted your lungs to get a full course in suffocation. Bleeding from a gunshot would hurt but total suffocation, that was a slower, more painful end.

Keith admired the floor.

Lance mirrored him.

Could this get any gayer?

Shiro coughed into a curled hand, “So yea. That’s Pidge and this is Keith, who I guess you know, I take it. I’m not asking. Let’s just have a good time. I think I hear your mom calling us, babe.”

“She’s not—oh! Yea we should go see what she wants. Hunk. Gabby.”

“Oh I am not missing this,” Gabby hopped on the counter with plans to enjoy the encounter.

Allura pulled on her arm. “If you wanna keep that tattoo you got a secret you will.”

“Snitch.” Allura cocked her eyebrow and crossed her arms, the silent deadliness of her movement reminiscent of a rattlesnake.

Gabby changed her tone, shuffling her butt toward the ledge before she jumped down. “Wait, I’m playing. Please don’t tell on me.”

Pidge was better at reading between the lines so she matched Shiro pace as everyone jammed through the back door. With Lance’s back to her, she pointed at him and mouthed _that’s him_ , Keith gave a subtle nod.

Pidge lifted two thumbs and then disappeared behind the door.

Lance rubbed his palms together. “So back for seconds? Sorry I cope with everything by making jokes. You’re Shiro brother, then.”

“And you’re Allura’s,”

“Yup.”

“You look…” Keith scrambled for words but each carried an emotion on its back or a suggestion of how bad he wanted to pin Lance to a wall and kiss his soft looking mouth. Couldn’t say pretty, cute, hot, stunning, or you’re the reason my dick ached every morning and night. “Good.”

Ah, safe and neutral.

Lance’s eye made a detour down his body, parroting back the same. “Thanks. You look good too.”  He pushed off the counter. “So this doesn’t have to be weird.”

But it would be, Lance was just the one who got away, the memory Keith would romanticize until no one could match up to Lance. This changed everything. They were going to be brothers-in-law after the wedding. Any chance of his attraction to Lance dying a slow death completely voided now.

“It’s gonna be a little weird.”

“Then we can pretend that night didn’t happen. Hi. I’m Lance. And sometimes I yell ‘fuck da police’.”

Keith offered his hand, “Keith. Sometimes I don’t arrest assholes who yell that.”

“Must be my lucky day then.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. We have all night. I might arrest you.”

 

 

[x]

 

Keith didn’t believe in luck. Life either worked in your favor or against you and Keith was debating if life was fucking him or rewarding today. Probably a smidge of both; staring at Lance was a treat especially in such a natural and happy state with his family. The little social butterfly he was, he mingled with everyone and not a person left his side without a smile.

Currently, Lance sat at one of the table with, who Keith assumed, his mother and grandmother. They didn’t have Lance’s blue eyes but their faces were similar, a beauty inherited clearly from his mom’s side since Lance looked little like his father.

 Every few seconds Keith would notice their gaze shift on to him and a dialogue pass behind a hand or with the company of a coy smile.

“Wow, you got cartoon eyes,” Pidge hummed next to him. She sipped leisurely on a Corona with her head propped on a fist. “Like Bugs Bunny from Looney Tunes. Whenever he saw that girl bunny he would get heart eyes.”

“I don’t have heart eyes. And the girl bunny is Lola.”

The alpha belched. “Ugh. You would know the name. Furry.”

“Shut up, Tweety Bird.”

Shiro scraped a chair out and slumped into it, tipping his head back.

Keith grinned at his exhaustion; sweat glistened on his brother’s forehead but even dead beat drained as he was Shiro managed to appear his usual flawless state, “Tired?”

The alpha opened and closed his mouth, breathing, before he got the strength to speak. “I was playing tag, okay. I’m on break.”

“Tag?”

“With Manny, Sergio, Christian, Dulce, Yolanda, Johnny, and Josefina,” Shiro listed, lifting a finger for each name.

“Dude I’m barely keeping up with the older ones.”

Shiro scrubbed his face, “Well we’re getting married. I kinda need to know who’s who. Apparently another half of the family is in Cuba.”

“This is insane,” Keith gaped, there was an easy twenty people in the yard and the front. More in the alley where he heard a basketball ricochet off the backboard and land in the hoop. “We have two uncles and seven cousins who we see once every two years.”

“Yea. Allura’s bummed out.” Shiro stole one of Pidge’s warmed tortillas, which Lance’s father cooked on top of the steak meat for added seasoning, and ate it slowly. “She wants our family to meet hers but I told her they’re in South Korea. They’ll come for the wedding but for stuff like this, not happening. You have stuff like this with your family, Pidge?”

“We’re Irish so we’ll see each other when someone dies or during the holiday. Then we all get really drunk. It’s honestly fun as hell. St. Patty’s Day is big in my house. We’ll go to the parade downtown and watch them turn the water green.”

“Me and Shiro get those Shamrock shakes for St. Patty’s day.”

“That’s incredibly lame. Next year you’re coming with my family. Don’t worry I’ll make sure you don’t get too shitfaced.”

“Keith, can I ask how you know Lance?”

Keith dropped his eyes. “Fuck.”

“I bailed you out of a family interrogation.”

He did and he ran interference from his future wife who set her eyes on Keith like a bloodhound in front of vermin. Anytime she gravitated in his area Shiro pulled her into a magical kiss and the alpha soon lost her focus if for a brief time.

“I kinda helped him out after his mate and him had words.”

Shiro wiped his mouth. “So you know about Lotor?”

“What kind of dumbass name is that?” Keith snipped. Heat bucked like a mad storm, instant and ungovernable. His alpha was not too far behind. He skimmed the surface, fin exposed like a shark seeking fresh blood.

“Damn, Keith. So jelly,” Pidge snickered, pinching him on the arm to distract him from the anger.

He turned to Pidge.  “I’m not jealous but a real alpha wouldn’t let him omega walk out of a fight. You gotta talk it out.”

His attraction aside, it was still a shit thing to do. Breaking bonds so abruptly sometimes pitted omegas in a near catatonic state or in a fit of arousal. Sure Lance was better off than most but Keith accounted it on his rogue status.

His mate wouldn’t know for sure how well or poor Lance’s omega would respond and a probability like that shouldn’t be left to chances or a kind soul.

“Well Lance didn’t walk out. He was kicked out.”

Keith slammed his beer down, “Where does that prick live?”

“Settle, Keith.”

Keith leaned across the table and lowered his voice, his alpha rippled under his skin as incense as Keith about the fact, “He was jumped, Shiro. And all out of whack with their bond breaking. What if he got hurt? What if I didn’t notice him?”

His alpha brother clapped his arm, willing Keith and his alpha to cease and desist with the pheromones. “I get you but you did, bro. I didn’t know about him getting jumped though, but I’m not surprised he didn’t say it to his family. If you’re mad, think how piss they all would be.”

Yea, Keith had one night with him. A good night, true, but one all the same. He was reacting like Lance was his essentially.

They were no better than strangers. Face it, Keith.

Stop white knighting all over this guy. Unlike the omegas in your line of work, he didn’t need rescuing.

Pidge cleared her throat, “Shit. Keith really is a white knight.”

The purchase his anger latched to crumbled. “Oh my god. Don’t call me that.”

“Fuckin’ Arthur of the round table.”

“No.”

“Robin Hood.”

“You’re just goin’ to list names of iconic heroes?”

“Jon Snow,” Shiro added, smiling.

Keith pushed back in his chair, “I am evil. Get it right.”

The two alphas laughed at each other, egging one another on. Shiro tossed out, “Logan.”

“Oh! I have one. The Batman.” Pidge snapped her fingers.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance’s grandmother, Gloria, touched his inner wrist and jerked her head to where Keith and Pidge talked at the table. “ _Shiro’s family got some good genes, yea. Two good looking sons. Usually you have one cute son and a decent looking one.”_

He turned his head. _“Do I wanna ask who’s the cute one?”_

_“Don’t tell Hunk but it’s you,”_ she said. Her hair glowed white under the copper sun, soaking the rays/

His grandmother hadn’t bothered to fight her graying hair with hair products. The second it started to gray she chopped off most of her hair and let the streaks grow at their own pace.

_“Thanks for calling my son ugly, mom.”_

_“Your kids are the best looking. Lance is prettier than Hunk but Lance also looks more like a girl.”_

Lance leaned back, expression stricken with surprise. _“Grandma!”_

_“Keith looks like a girl too. That’s why both your faces are attractive.”_

Lance stared at Keith briefly then looked away, feeling flushed. Don’t make it weird. He was going to be your future brother in law. Chill with the flirting. “ _He’s not bad_.”

His grandmother reached around him and tapped his mother and pointed at Lance. “ _You hear your son?_ ”

_“Ma. Leave him alone.”_ She chided.

_“Grandson, you’re too handsome to waste your beauty on a dumb fuck like your ex. You should be out there, making the alphas pay for your attention.”_

_“It’s a little soon, right?”_ He looked at his mother for guidance, Out of everyone, she had the best experience when it came to dating post-bond.

“ _You don’t have to do a thing until you’re ready. Time to yourself might be what you need. At least until your bond flushes out completely. I didn’t date until that happened but I had your sister and I was pregnant with you at the time_ ,” she said, her face sincere and patient.

She brushed his bangs back and kissed his forehead, smearing it with her nude lipstick. Lance complained and swiped at it and tried to clean it off with spit and a napkin. “ _I was very lucky things worked so well with your father but I wasn’t too picky at the time. Money was tight and I didn’t want you two growing up without a father.”_

_“He’s cute_ ,” Lance admitted shyly.

Crude as ever, his grandmother chuckled loudly, “ _If I was thirty years younger, that boy would be thanking Jesus and the Virgin Mary.”_

Lance and his mother laughed, _“Damn, grandma! You’re shameless.”_

_“Oh my god, mother. I don’t need that image in my head.”_

_“Shut up. A woman is allowed to dream. Just cause I’m old don’t mean shit.”_

_“Want me to get his number for you?”_ Lance joked.

_“I wouldn’t stand a chance. He keeps looking at you,_ ” she smiled, all weathered brown skin and missing teeth. She still killed it at her age, Lance thought. Aging gracefully like few could. _“Go dance with him.”_

_“Ew, no.”_ Lance refused.

Dancing did not comply with Mission _Try not to hit on your future brother in law_. Also he was a complete chicken.

His grandmother huffed, _“Where are your balls?”_

_“Apparently you have them right now.”_

Manny ran up to Lance, “Lance could you play cops and robbers with us? Shiro’s too tired from playing tag.”

“Sure, little man.”

His grandmother commented loudly to his mom, “ _Look at the chicken boy running away_.”

_“I will put you in a home, grand.”_

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith walked to the front of the house, flipping the latch on the metal gate. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Lance pedaling on a Big Wheel down the sidewalk, the plastic wheels rumbling over cement. Another car pursued, it was a motorized Jeep. A boy and a girl sat in the front seat and made the sound of the siren with their mouths.

“Pull move, thief,” the girl demanded.

Lance outpaced them with his oversized legs. The Big Wheel slowed, he turned in the seat and shook his fist in a mean-spirited fashion. “You’ll never get me alive, coppers!”

The little girl noticed Keith smirking from the side of the house and hopped out of the car. She had pigtails and a pastel pink summer dress and a gap where her baby teeth fell out. “Are you a cop?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Can you help us?”

“What’s the problem?”

The little girl twirled and pointed a spiteful finger at Lance, “He stole that car.”

“Ah, grand theft auto. I’ll be happy to help you apprehend him.”

The girl clapped and skipped back to the car and shared the news.

Keith put his beer down and strolled over to Lance.

Lance tried to get his feet on the small pedals and move. “Shit.”

Keith stepped in front of him. “Sir, did you steal this Big Wheel?”

“No.”

The Jeep caught up with them and two junior officers jumped out of the toy vehicle. “He’s lying.”

Keith crossed his arms, “License and registration, sir.”

“Uh…” Lance looked for an escape route.

“Out of the Big Wheel, sir.”

Lance tripped trying to stand out and make a getaway. He made it about a foot before Keith reined in him and folded his arms behind his back, he kept Lance’s wrists cuffed by wrapping them in his hand. The alpha led him to the front steps.

“You’re going away for a long time.”

“Manny. Dulce!” Lance pleaded as he struggled against Keith’s hold. “Don’t let him put me in the slammer.”

Manny and Dulce smiled and told him goodbye, going back in their squad car to chase down more criminals.

Keith squeezed his wrist, “Hey you know what they say if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

“So what now, officer?” asked Lance, looking up at Keith from his cell on the front stairs. For the sake of the game Lance kept his hands pinned behind his back.

“Now you have a ten minute time out.”

The omega cocked his jaw in a dangerous angle and let one hell of a flirtatious smile curl his lips. “Sure I can’t change your mind, policeman, I got some good stuff on me.”

Rooted firmly and confidently to the ground, a feeling of vertigo saw past that and unhinged Keith all on the account of a silly smile. He closed his fingers on the railing to remember the ground and the earth. “You trying to bribe me, sir?”

Lance bit his bottom lip innocently, “Who, me? Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The kid raced down the block caught in another high-speed pursuit but the person in the Big Wheel was right for the size. Some of the neighbors across the street had the sprinklers going and the sound of water hitting the pavement and the grass were vivid in Lance’s presence.

He brushed away some dirt and sat on the step above Lance.

“How you liking the family, man?” Lance asked, back turned and up against the stair railing. His long legs took up the rest of the space.

Keith skimmed his palm over cement. Years of water, sun, heat, and harsh winter showed its toll where the concrete had cracks. “It’s big but nice.”

“It’s kinda funny. My sister is dating your bro. Who would’ve thought, huh?”

Small world. Luck. Or just the universe fucking Keith for some wrong in a previous life. He couldn’t settle on one.

Who would’ve guessed that pretty omega sitting in the alley would find him again?

“Maybe the universe wants me to keep you in line,” Keith joked. “You’re no stranger to crime as it seems.”

“Oh gonna protect me now? Be my angry guardian angel.”

“Why do people think I’m angry all the time? I’m not.”

“It’s cause you have bitch face.”

His wisest response was to snip back, “You have bitch face.”

“Whoa. Listen I’ve never punched a cop before but if you go for my face man, it’s on. My face is bitch free. Everyone wants my face.”

Keith snorted, the soreness aching around his cheeks was a welcomed pain.  “Sure. Okay, Lance.”

“Dem fighting words. Let’s tussle,” Lance’s knees popped as he hopped to his feet. He bent them to get some of the stiffness out then assumed a pose Keith had seen in a fighting game.  “I will have you know that I am the King of Nerf Wars, Smash, Mario Kart, and Operation.”

“No one is good at Operation,” Keith shot down.

Lies. Just like no one really played a full game of Monopoly unless they wanted to waste five hours or more into a game.

“I am.”

“Bullshit.”

“You want me to grab the game now and show you my powers?”

“Powers, so just because you got a firm, steady grip you’re powerful. I have a firm grip too when I jack off.”

“Sounds like someone too chicken shit to face me in combat. Chicken Boy.”

The alpha stood up too, dwarfing with the omega slightly thanks to the assistance from the stairs. “The fuck you call me?”

Lance’s grin spread slowly like a villain whose master plan formed perfectly in their head. He coughed to open his airways and said. “Chicken. Boy.”

“How dare you. I am a Chicken Man, prick.”

The omega jutted his chin smugly. “Boy.”

“Fine. We’ll play and you’ll see what a real man is.”

Lance shuffled his feet, “Oh. So alpha of you.”

Hunk opened the front door and slammed the screen behind him. He mounted a step. “Mind if I bum with you two? The girls are talking highlighters or something. I had to leave Shiro behind. God be with him.”

“Hunk, real quick. Who is the reigning surgeon of Operation?”

Hunk made a face while in thought. “Uh. Mom.”

“After mom.”

He hummed, “You but Gabby almost broke your record.”

“See.” The omega waved in demonstration of his status as crowned Champion of Operation. “Me. Bow to the king, baby.”

“Again. Prove it. Or are you all talk?”

“Boy, I am all bite.”

 

 

[x]

 

“Lance is feeling the pressure. His opponent, Keith, has the world renowned Operation champion on his toes. This could surely be the day Lance loses that title,” Hunk commented as Keith and Lance hunched over the ball-less patient.

Lance ran his palms over his jeans and stretched his fingers.

Hunk said. “Looks like Lance is feeling the tension.”

“Would you shut up? I can’t concentrate.”

“Keith has him on the ropes,” his brother continued, laughing along with Keith when Lance heatedly threw his body over the table to bat at Hunk.

Keith felt pleasantly buzzed and absolutely blazed to the stars by the frustration and endearing expressions Lance made throughout their match. Maybe he was unaware of the habit but Lance was a biter and his lips showcased a raspberry red from the repeated treatment of his teeth chewing his lip.

His alpha supplied a lot of places where Lance could put his teeth to real good use like his neck, chest, nibbling down his stomach as he inched further and further to his coc—

Keith, this was a family friendly game. You’re getting too _friendly_.

Focus. Unbalance Lance.

Keith put his arms to the air, flexing his corded arms; Lance’s laser focus wavered when he reclined back in his chair and knocked his knees apart. “What’s wrong, omega, can’t handle the heat? I can open a window for you.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Keith puffed out his chest.

“That!”

“The sexual tension is mounting,” Hunk said. “Get it, cause you when fuck you mount a person. Wait it’s gross when the person getting mounted is you. Nevermind.”

Keith dove between his legs and laughed hard.

“I am not being mounted. No one is getting mounted.”

“Mount,” Hunk said to further egg Lance’s rant. “Like a horse.”

Keith would fist bump Hunk but he was dying currently between his legs so maybe in the afterlife then.

“Do you see a saddle on my back?”

“I guess the other dude would use the saddle cause you know, the penis in the butt stuff.”

“Did you just assume I bottom? Hunk, where’s your mate, you need an adult.”

“I mean it’s…Look I dunno how the homosexual thing works but you seem like…you might like it? Don’t confirm that.” He moved his hands. “Like it’s okay if you do or you don’t. It’s confusing with the rogue omega thing and you’re a dude and you like dudes and I hear some homosexual couples switch.”

Keith slapped his thigh. A few sounds which one may attribute to a pig came from the alpha.

“I don’t even know where to start with you.”

“I’m pretty buzz, bro.”

“Oh yea. I know. And just for the record, you don’t have to be gay to like it in the ass.”

Keith resurfaced, face in actual pain from laughing so hard. “Do you…like the penis in the butt?”

Hunk and Keith cackled like hyenas, clapping each other on the back.

“Why are you on my brother’s side? You’re supposed to defend me.”

“Answer the question.”

“So curious. Why would you ever need information like that I wonder.”

Feeling wild with the good mood and the better buzz, Keith masked on his lady killer smile and set the charge from stun to kill. Critical hit. Headshot. We had a man wounded, people. The man hid his reaction well; the slight flush of his cheek and the fleeting but feverish peek at his lip gave Lance away. His omega on the other hand was more telling, more honest, more daring, and the faint scent of desire flowered.

Keith debated if it was more efficient to snap the table in half or chunk it across the room in order to get near Lance.

“The tension is mounting again,” Hunk whispered, not blind to their poorly concealed flirtation. Pretend all they wanted, the banter was shy of pressing each other to a wall.

Lance scowled. “I’m telling on you, Hunk.”

“Psst, Shay ain’t gonna do crap.”

“I’m telling mom.”

The threat sobered Hunk up. He put his beer down with dread itching up his spine. “Wait, don’t tell on me.”

“Oh, mother,” Lance sang, enjoying it the clear expression of fear on his brother’s face.

“Lance is clearly trying to get out of this match because he’s losing.”

Hunk slapped a hand to each cheek, gasping, “Lance. You fiend. Where is your honor as a general surgeon? Doctor Shepard would be so disappointed.”

“My honor, Keith has no honor. He is cheating.”

“How am I cheating? Explain.”

“You know how,” Lance hissed.

“No. You gotta tell me. My alpha brain is so small. I can’t read subtext.” He flexed his arms over his head again. Hope Lance liked guns cause Keith was carrying two barrels.

“Man. This is like the scene in a movie where the two love interest bicker then makeout furiously and everyone in the room just awkwardly walks out.”

“Listen Hunk, you can kiss Keith to your heart’s content after I take his ass to school. Right next to my title of king, I also have a Ph.D in whooping ass.”

 “What’s the name of this prestigious _school_?”

“It’s the _University of Shut the Hell up Keith_ , where I majored in _Ass Kicking_ and minored _in How to make Keith eat shit_.”

“You should get a refund on that because you’re eating shit, not me.”

He got a glare for that. “Keith, you wanna get curb stomp?”

“Any excuse to touch this.”

“No. Hunk called dibs on you.”

“I did?” Hunk blinked, fading in and out of the conversation. “I mean you would have to bottom though if that’s okay.”

“I thought Lance bottom.”

“Oh, look who’s looking for an excuse to touch my butt.”

Hunk checked his phone and time escaped them since it was already eight and the sun was lining behind houses. Hunk locked his cell and placed it screen up on the table. “Guys, this match is gonna take all night with these passive aggressive sexual jabs.” 

“Yea, Keith,” Lance pointed out in such a mature tone.

“You’re the one buying time, Lance.”

“Keith.”

“Lance.”

“Ugh. Just remove the heart, Doctor.”

Lance rolled his shoulders and picked up the tweezers and boosted his resolve. “Alright. I got this. This is for my title.”

 He scooted closer for a maximum vantage point, the ball-less man stared up with dread as Lance brought his medical tweezers over the heart shaped hole. Metal lined the sides. A sweat beaded at the omega’s forehead and he centered all his training and years as a skilled surgeon in a child’s board game.

Keith booed, “Get on with it.”

His taunt couldn’t shatter Lance’s focus. The tweezers lowered. The room watched with baited breath, all too fearful that their breath might upset the surgeon’s concentration. Centimeter by centimeter the metal tongs drifted closer. He got ahold of the cookie cutter fractured heart and started the stressful ascension.

He passed without setting off the buzzer.

God. Damn.

“Doctor,” Hunk shook Lance’s hand in celebration. “Excellent work.”

“Thank you, nurse.”

Hunk presented Keith with the tweezers. “Doctor Keith, the patient is yours.”

Keith molded his fingers comfortably, testing out his steady hand. “Why are we role playing like we’re actually doctors?”

“Cause it’s fun,” Lance answered. “Now the patient, doctor.”

Keith huffed a small breath of laughter before he got serious and dragged the legs of his chair to the table’s edge and sat his elbows down. With each removed organ the task became more critical and required the utmost levels of focus and will power. The space grew tighter and claustrophobic,  the wiggle room for error dwindled drastically. The faintest of brushes would spell defeat. If he let his breath out too hastily his fingers might jerk and tap the metal.

They were in nationals now. The big league.  World championship. People entered and left as gods.

The wishbone, tricky, but the challenge came with luxurious rewards like shouting booya in Lance’s face.

Hunk and Lance watched in suspense as he worked toward the bone.

Keith closed the tweezers around one of the ends and examined the angle so it would lift straight up and not on a curve. Decided, he breathed and started the process when the door slammed wide and startled him into bumping the side.

“Fuck!” He slapped his palm on the table.

Lance jumped out of his chair and fist pumped the air, performed a solo on an air guitar, and rolled his neck to a beat that existed only in his head. The alpha buried his head in defeat.

Hunk sat up and clapped Lance on the shoulder. “Undefeated.”

“You can’t stop this, Keith. I’m like air.”

“Shut. Up.”

Gabby looked from the doorway, squinting her eyes at the table. “Oh my god, seriously. You’re playing and you didn’t tell me, I want the title.”

“Ain’t happening,” Lance shook his head.

“Cause you know I’ll beat you.”

“You’re the student and I’m the teacher and that’s not changing until I die. And even when I die I will find a way to throw salt in your game.”

“Chill. Anyway, mom asked me to get you.”

“What happened?”

Gabby smiled shyly. “Emilio brought his band.”

“Again, you guys make me sing at every damn party,” he grumbled.

“Pretty please,” Gabby clapped her hands together and bounced off her feet. “Everyone’s asking for you to sing.”

“Can’t keep the people waiting I guess. Let’s go.” He pushed back the chair with the laziness developed from several empty bottles.

“Really, oh my god.  C’mon, c’mon,” Gabby tugged impatiently and Lance lumbered behind her and granted her the pleasure of ushering him out the door. “Could you sing _Amor Prohbido_?”

 

 

[x]

 

 

In preparation for the band, the tables were pushed to the sides and the chairs were stacked on top of each other in the corner. Though a few chairs were left for the oldest members of the family. The band had their instruments set up and worked on connecting the cords to an outlet. A boisterous cheer heralded Lance’s arrival.

He waved and walked over to one of the guy tuning a guitar. The beta and Lance embraced each other and shared a few jokes.

Keith found Pidge standing with a beer as she talked to a hazel skinned omega. Shiro was at the front as he hugged Allura from behind. They sneaked kisses between their soft words and neither could be any happier than they were now.

His gaze bounced over to Lance when the omega tapped a microphone to his palm.

Pidge waved him over, “So been busy?”

Keith side eyed the pretty omega that walked off to the back probably to gossip to a friend about Pidge’s quite smooth lines. Wouldn’t think it but the pixie young made chicks swoon and blush to the heavens. He should know he went to her plenty of times for help and her advice scored every time. “Already at it, I see.”

“I do believe you ditched me for him,” she pointed. “Not a bad choice, Keith.”

“He’s good,” he shrugged, playing off the mountain-sized crushing destroying his mind, body, and soul for the second time. It seemed infinitely devastating with each encounter that or Keith was sloshed.

The alpha leaned forward to scan his face. “Dude your heart eyes are going to make me puke.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Doesn’t seem like that to me if you two are so smitten that you would both abandon the whole party. You never pass on a party or beer.”

“I was playing a game.”

“Naughty Keith,” she held her hand to high-five him.

“It was Operation.”

She slowly lowered it. “Wow, did you ask his mother if you could have a sleepover too and stay up extra late just this once?”

“Pidge watch out,” Keith pushed her to the side. “Thank god. There was a tiny crack. I didn’t want you to get an early ticket to hell when you have work tomorrow.”

“Ha. We’re both going to hell. You’ll probably get there first since guys die early.”

“Maybe I’ll haunt you.”

“Then you’re going to see a lot of pussy and last I checked, that’s not your thing.”

“Damn. That was good. Props, girl.”

The microphone wailed coming on. Lance slapped the bulb shape, “Testing, testing.”

“Lance sucks!” A random voice shouted.

“Hunk, I will come over there. Yea I see you, don’t play,” Lance said. “Since it’s my baby sister’s big day I guess I’ll bless you all with my voice. Emilio.”

The keyboard and the guitar started first followed by the tap on the drums. Lance held the microphone to his lips and swayed his hips to the music.

_Con unas ansias locas quiero verte hoy_  
Espero ese momento en que escuche tu voz  
Y cuando al fin estemos juntos los dos  
Qué importa qué dirán tu padre y tu mamá  
Aquí sólo importa nuestro amor, te quiero

The family _roared_ in response, chanting back the lyrics.

_Amor prohibido murmuran por las calles_  
Porque somos de distintas sociedades  
Amor prohibido nos dice todo el mundo  
El dinero no importa en ti y en mí, ni en el corazón  
Oh, oh baby

Lance smiled, singing with his hypnotic laughter weaved finely in his voice, he moved and snapped his fingers with the melody. Keith knew some Spanish but even with the language gap he was swept up as everyone by the music, by Lance’s harmonious voice, his radiant presence, the smile that couldn’t falter for a second because Lance was built for this type of environment, for the light, the attention, the admiration.

Keith felt aboard—

The Tom Hanks in _Cast Away._

The Pi in _The Life of Pi_.

A pirate on a crewless ship.

The mermaid after she lost her voice and forfeited an enteral life under the cool ripples for a human with legs as inexperienced as a newborn.

Swept up and gone like driftwood in the middle of a tsunami with no idea where the ground or the sky was.

Shyly, Keith shuffled side to side and bobbed his head along. Lance caught him dancing stiffly and his smile became absolutely blinding. Keith shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands to the air, threads of embarrassment shredding away. He had no fear that he couldn’t follow a beat or be as fluid and flawless as Lance. If anything Lance helped him step a little bit out of his comfort zone and be okay with it.

Lance bowed at the end of the song and the whole yard applauded and asked for an encore. Keith added to the chant.

The omega relented, exhaling slightly from dancing around, and sipped some cold water before he brought the microphone up again.

 

[x]

 

 

The party simmered down by one in the morning, several guests kissed each other on the cheek in farewell with a paper plate securely wrapped in foil. Keith and Pidge nursed a glass of water to sober up before they headed back as well. Lance’s immediate family chatted around the table, content, even with the monster of a cleanup waiting for them the next day.

Lance’s mother, Maribel, and his father Reyes twined their fingers under the table as they watched their growing children talk and shoot jokes.  Allura and Shiro were a near perfect image of the ever after seen in movies, hands warm and soft in each other’s grip, hearts full and pink with joy.

You could smell a bad bond if you tried. Bad couples reeked it even when they masked the scent of distrust, contempt, and jealousy.

He couldn't find any here.

Not that Shiro and Allura didn’t have their off days. Shiro would frown through the entire shift like he always did when Keith and him had words, so it never went past Keith the times he and Allura were at odds. It was healthy to have disagreements, to get a little upset at someone you love, to distance yourself and remember relationships weren’t _I love you_ ’s and photogenic pictures on social media. Relationship required negotiations, the exposure of one’s feelings, a willingness to put aside pride and anger. It was work and the days came when it felt like it.

So Keith knew a healthy relationship from a nasty one. He had a few of those under his belt. Omegas that fought him on his hours; omegas who grew jealous when he returned with the scent of one on him ,even though his job sometimes demanded he comfort omegas with the alpha, they would not hear it. Then there were the omegas who wanted a nice trophy like Keith on their sheets because pride followed when you dated strong alphas and had their black leather scent on your skin. Envy followed and some liked having the room sneering at their luck.

Keith kicked them to the curb. He could live with just his hand and the hype of laying in with easy and slutty omegas died with his age. At some point, you wanted someone who made you laugh and hugged you during the bad times.

He wondered if Lance’s mate was here, would that smell be here?

The sourness of a poor match.

C’mon, man, don’t be putting hope in places where it shouldn’t be.

Take what you got here and enjoy it.

Mate or not, Lance was a cool guy he wouldn’t mind tossing a few beers with like today.  Someone who wasn’t on the force and bitching on about shit alphas, or long shifts, or how the human officers were mean mugging for being an alpha.

Like a ripe tide, Lance’s drained laughter steered him out of his thoughts. “You guys gotta have a _Game of Thrones_ wedding.”

“Hell yea,” Hunk agreed. “Allura could kill it as Dany.”

“And Shiro got the guns for Khal Drogo,” Lance said.

Shiro ducked his face into Allura’s neck.

Lance continued, “And I’m just gonna say it, I’m Jon Snow. Anyone want to fight me, meet me now.”

“Jon’s too serious for you,” Gabby argued. “I’m thinkin’ more like Daairo, the original guy before he got re-casted.”

“Hunk would be Ned.”

“I take that with pride, brother,” he toasted.

“Gabby would be Arya for sure.”

“I ain’t even mad.”

Lance bumped his knuckles to his lip and hummed huskily at Keith, a hot emotion dripped into the expression and fooled Keith into believing the sun and moon ceased in a cosmic explosion. “You would be a great Jon.”

“Oh yea?”

“Yup,” Lance listed off the qualities that made Keith a good candidate. “Pretty. Looks good in black. Skilled fighter. Plus you got that _my word is my bond_ kind of deal. Honor first and all.”

Allura tapped her finger on the table to rein back the topic. “And how are we supposed to afford a wedding like that? I get decent pay from the school but not that well.”

He puckered his lips and thought up a solution. “Then sell drugs or something. Shiro can help you stay a step ahead of the cops.”

“Lance. Stop trying to start a meth shop, we’re not doing that.”

“Meth’s hardcore. I was thinking we do weed. Calm down, Shiro.”

Allura looked to their mother, “Ma, aren’t you going to tell Lance something?”

“Don’t grow it in the house.”

His father tacked off, “Also we get a discount when we buy.”

Shiro cupped his ears and talked over everyone, “I’m not hearing this. Not hearing a thing about you guys growing cannabis.”

“Cannabis?’ Keith snorted. “Such a square, Shiro. It’s called getting lit.”

“We have drug screenings at work,” Shiro said in distraught, abandoning his earmuffs as he reconsidered his brother.

“If you’re in narcotics, yea,” said Pidge. “You’re cool for the most part when you worked the other departments. It’s better than smoking.”

“We’re cops.”

“See,” Pidge gestured in demonstration. “You’re such a dad.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

“That enough?” Lance asked as he filled a plate of leftovers for Keith. The alpha bumped his arm into Lance as he looked.

“A little more rice, yea.”

Lance scooped another spoon and piled it and grabbed another plate to cap it and wrapped it in foil. “You’re all set.”

“Thanks,” Keith took the plate, fishing for something to prolong their conversation. Bad on him cause conversations scored low on the list of skills Keith excelled at so he looked dumb and listless.

“We can have a rematch if you want. Technically Gabby fucked you up so it’s not a true win.”

“I’m down for it. Name the time and place.”

Ugh, so gay, Keith.

_Name the time and place_.

Real original, dude.

“Well I would need your number to do that.”

Damn.

Fucking _damn_.

So smooth; how was Lance skating circles around him while he couldn’t manage his feet under him?

“You want my number?”

Lance flushed, realizing that it sounded like a come on. “For the match you know, to prove I am the king.”

“We’ll have to do it at my place so what happened today doesn’t happen again. Cleaner results,” Keith explained as he unlocked his cell and went to create a contact for Lance.

Oh yea, _we gonna do it at my place cause reasons and not for any ulterior motive like the fact I want you_ and _I need the thinnest of excuses to talk to you, please don’t make me admit out loud how bad I want to see you again and again_.

“O-oh. Yup. That sounds like a good idea to me,” Lance nodded, shamefully red in the face and too flustered to maintain eye contact for longer than a few seconds. The omega scanned the room for visual distractions. “Two guys playing Operation alone.”

“Yea. So your number…”

“Uh. It’s…” Lance read off his digits.

Keith’s fingers developed the worst case of butterfingers he’d ever experienced in his life but if Lance saw it, he didn’t comment on it. He texted Lance just to be sure he got the number down correct.

Lance checked his phone and replied.

_Slut_

Keith made a face at the text. “I’m erasing my number off your phone.”

“Nah, nah.” Lance positioned his phone out of reach. Moonlight bleached one half of his face from where the pregnant moon hung while yellow light from the city’s street post washed the other half.

Pidge whistled. “Ready Keith?”

“Yea,” he answered, then turned back to Lance. “You bring the game. I’ll get us beer.”   

 

 

[x]

 

 

What a blinding star. Made to dazzle and amaze.

Keith didn’t need the math to understand why he felt an unshakeable draw toward the omega. People chased stars since the start. Studies their white light through their eyes, through glasses lenses, through massive telescopes. 

We made metal ships with aerodynamic wings and powerful thrusters to launch us closer. Floated in zero gravity with our lives back on earth for the pursuit of stars and round planets, stagnant in a metal home.

We made films with lovers gazing up. Head in the clouds. Eyes on the moon and glittering starlight.

So it made sense for Keith, the astronaut in this equation, to make his own metal ship and rocket into space for the distance star.

After all, what did astronauts do besides walking on meteor sized craters and break stars down from balls of illuminance down to a scale of size and measurements of its chemical state.

 

 

[x]

 

 

“So you got his number I see. Smooth,” Pidge said once they got in the car. Sweat from dancing and laughing all night left her face glossy and oily.

“To hang out,” Keith said too quick for anyone especially someone as bright and observant as Pidge to not read into it.

Awareness flickered behind her glasses, that superior knowledge which offered Pidge a sword and shield to bullies in school because she had her nose in a book and not in drugs or alcohol. It was with this knowledge she aced the ACTs, college, the exam given at the Academy; knowledge studied Keith like a lab coat watching over cells through a scope and a dead animal with a scalpel.

But Pidge had Keith’s back the second Coran presented her to the department. Alphas sneered and laughed privately at the runt of her size. Sure she was alpha but the fuck could a little chick do in the field.

Keith, Shiro, and Ulaz silenced the whispers in the locker room day one and he found Pidge assigned to him the next day with a curl to her mouth that prayed for Keith to be wise and tell her something considering her size or sex, but Keith looked her up and down curtly and asked who was driving.

So Pidge knew when Keith needed the boot to his shit and when he needed a faithful friend.

“Thanks for taking me out,” she said instead. “Shiro’s girl is really cool. We might hang out which will be new since I haven’t hang out with a straight girl since junior year.”

“Junior?

“Yea. I figured out all that jealously was my inner gay being repressed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm that person who sucks ass at Operation.
> 
> The sone mentioned is by Selena. 
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> tiwtter:angry_latte


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last week was a trip i got called in on my day off for closing and we have this heatwave in chicago. i'm repainting my entire room. So my time and motivation has been thin of late, plus i'm near the end of this project so obviously, my mind is trying to convince me to throw my laptop at the wall, give up writing, and bury myself under the covers.

“I’m not drunk,” insisted the heavily intoxicated alpha wobbling on the spot.

Keith and Matt traded a mute look of _I call bullshit_ and regarded the alpha. “Miss last thing you need to be doing is driving. You swerved twice. Be thankful no one was in that lane.”

“I’m. Not.” The alpha hiccupped and paused, summoning all her effort not to vomit right then and there. “Drunk.”

Her omega leaned against the car, eyes barely open. She blinked them wider when Pidge snapped her fingers. “Miss. You okay?”

“I wasn’t drinking.”

“Listen, you two are shit-faced and you’re lucky an accident didn’t happen. Either take a cab or walk it home.”

Keith stepped back and patted Matt on the back, passing the rookie the breathalyzer. “Test them. You know how it works if they’re over, we ticket her and take them in for the night.”

“If we do that then he gets to sit in the back with them. I’m not risking it.”

“Blow here, miss,” Matt instructed. Each shift with Keith and Pidge had the young alpha commanding more respect from the public and issuing out orders much more smoothly.

Pidge mumbled to her partner, “Things I say on my Saturday night.”

Keith sucked on his lip to keep his giggles at bay, “Shut up. We’re supposed to be professionals.”

“So you blowing the siren to run past a red was a professional move?”

“I really wanted to make in time for the discount.”

The alpha drunkenly eyed the device and leaned forward before an odd expression passed over her face and she vomited on the breathalyzer and Matt’s hand.

Matt gagged, “Oh god. Oh god. It’s on my—“ His throat worked. “I think I might—“ He paused again.

His mentors, on the other hand, were in multiple states of unprofessionalism; Keith braced himself over the hood, sounding as though he was fighting legitimate tears. Pidge squatted, actually crying.

“Did that—“She gasped, voice wheezy and tiny. “Keith. I can’t.”

Keith understood her immediately, coughing out. “I know. I know.”

“Thank you, God,” she smiled to the navy sky with a shimmer in her eyes.

“I hate you guys. I hate this job.”

The alpha stared blankly at the officers as vomit dribbled over her mouth and on her chin. “Oh shit.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith grew the fuck up and messaged Lance like an adult cause he was most certainly one and not for any other reason like Pidge haggling him day and night, most _certainly not_. He just happened to think a week and a half was plenty time to contact his future brother-in-law who he harbored no romantic feelings for.

Nope.

That drowning sensation; gas…right?

Please say right.

Fine. Don’t help him.

Keith padded out of his shower with a towel knotted and dripping off his hips and went into his bedroom and slid the closet wide. He wanted to be casually sexy like _would you look at that my chest and arms barely fit in this itty bitty muscle shirt, you can practically see my nipples_ type of casual. Or better yet how about that post-fight superhero look, you know the type— small quantities of blood running from nonlethal wounds, that Hollywood smudging of dust and grime which made actors look like they swallowed an illuminated bulb, uniform in an artful state of destruction and mayhem, the warrior expression in the hero’s eyes because beaten and bloody they weren’t down for the count

Like he sincerely wished for Lance to limp out his doorway without his touch or his lips. He wanted his long legs to cease all motor functions. Toss out the how-to manual into the big blue sea. Have that omega _crawl_. Hands and feet. Like an animal—in the most platonic way possible.

And look Keith got it. They were family and he could live with that fine so this wasn’t a malicious attack, more a _I’m_ _upset you’re so rightfully out of my league and I want to systematically destroy each organ in your body_ kind of attack.

Wouldn’t be Keith’s fault if he happened to be looking like created the burning core inside of sleeping volcanoes when Lance was in the same area. He had no control over looking like sex and honey. Nah, nah. The Big Guy, that was his bad.

So Lance was suffering.

And Keith would be very happy about it.

Besides Mr. RipTide, who sang with a voice that was the blue and light and purple in lighting bolt and was incredibly patient and tender with kids and family and looked like Hollywood,  could use a good ripping and jostling.

Stupid blue eyed, lightning stealing, Hollywood looking dick.

Keith opened their chat and reread their texts.

 

_Keith_

_So when am I getting my shot at the title again? Need to put a special talent on my resume_

_Lance_

_You can’t do that. I just did. How about Sunday, free then?_

_Keith_

_Yea. Time?_

_Lance_

_Four good with u?_

Keith backed out of the chat and clicked his contact, looking for the highest and wisest council on this God green Earth.

Pidge picked up on the third ring, sounding like six shades of unadulterated satisfaction. The picture of her in a leather chair with a fluffy white cat in her lap as she stroked its spine was not far from his mind. “Well, well, well. Keith, have you come for knowledge?”

He cut to it. “Look, not in a gay way, but I want to make a man die from looking at me.”

“This wouldn’t be a certain omega who made you cry, right?”

Keith made a noise that came from startled mounts and hastily insisted, “I didn’t cry.”

“Oh, so water got in your eye.”

Before you guys could start reading into Pidge’s propaganda, Keith did not cry. A lash fell into his eyeball while Lance was a current topic. No correlation. Circumstantial evidence. Case dismissed.

“Name your price, Pidge.”

She hummed as though she didn’t plan just for this scenario. “ _Beauty and The Beast_ midnight screening. Take it or dress yourself and I will remind you, Keith, that you are a low-level gay so the fashion perk is locked. You gotta be a level six gay to get that shit.”

“Midnight?”

“Yes, and I won’t make you sing along to the songs even though that is a sin.”

Either go to a Disney showing or miss out on making Lance swollen and wet in a few delicate places. “Okay. I’ll go. Now help me.”

“In the words of Genie, I’m gonna make you the star. You will sizzle boy. You gonna put the flame back into flaming homosexual.”

“I have thirty minutes, Pidgey.”

“I’m a cop. I work better under pressure.  First, don’t pick that black shirt you got at Hot Topic. It doesn’t look good.”

Keith re-hooked the hanger on the rack, looking around his room after doing so for cameras. “How did you—“

“Dude. We’re partners. I know you. Get that red shirt all the way in the back.”

Keith pushed the hangers, the plastic clanking. “That one is super tight though…Oh. I see.”

“Atta boy. No skinny jeans or you’ll look fifteen.”

Silently Keith refolded the skinny jeans and eased the drawer close. “I wasn’t gonna,” he lied.

“Sure.”

He opened his drawer of grown up jeans and skimmed through the fabric. “How about the dark ones?”

“Your Logan’s jean, hell yea. They make your booty pop and you can wear your biker boots like the douche you are.”

Actually, the boots were already out and washed by hand and rested at the foot of his mattress prime and ready. “They’re comfy and cool. Leave my shoes alone.”

“When you stop buying doubles I will. Oh and one more thing, don’t brush your hair with a comb. Use your fingers.”

He bumped the drawer with his hip. “That’s very specific.”

“You want Lance to get a boner or not?” She deadpanned.

“Yea but—”

“Then finger your hair,” Pidge said again.

“I’m not even gonna say how weird that sounds. Thanks for the help.”

“Oh don’t thank me. We’re going to see that movie when it comes out Friday. It’s gonna be lit, Keith.”  

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

The bell rang.

Lance was here.

Hear that people, get in your seats and grab your popcorn.

Showtime.

Keith unlatched the lock and slouched against the frame like he could not give a fuck. Channel it, Keith, be Mr. Man of Steel. Iron Man. Wolverine. Bones composed of gray steel and bullet casings.

Lance blinked, “Oh. Hey. Your shirt is…very red.” The omega remembered his manners and looked at Keith, in the face where his eyes were and not at his chest or gym-hardened arms. “Sorry. What?”

Pidge made the right call on the shirt.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Which wasn’t a ploy on his part cause while Lance was busy admiring the merchandise, Keith had a similar dilemma with keeping his eyes above the collar—

Wait, incorrect, he looked there too.

Fucking pretty omega with his shitty blue eyes.

And could we talk about how many times Keith mentioned the color blue, truthfully? Pidge was starting to depart the town of _I’ll tolerate your fanatic talk about your crush_ and settle into the city of _if you dare say about how blue his eyes are I’m driving us into the lake_.

Do you know the number of time he looked at shades of blue and booed them for not measuring up to Lance’s?

No more Menards or Home Depot because Keith immediately ventured to the paint section and made illogical comparisons about eyeballs and the flat color swatch on a piece of paper.

Guess he would never paint his room again.

Goodbye paint

And by the way, blue wasn’t in Keith’s vocabulary and now it laced every thought. Every. Thought.

He wrote blue on a report about a public disturbance. That cursed word had no right being anywhere near that report, he had to ask Shiro for white out. Keith asking for white out with his clean and mistake-free writing.

He had a stack of blue post-it notes on his desk and if his stash dwindled he went into the supply room and replenished it.

His pens, yup, they were blue too.

He bought a blue shirt. Blue…he had nothing to wear with it.

One more thing, Keith subconsciously grabbed any blue packet of gum whenever he made a quick run to the gas station.

Fuck blue, okay?

Stupid color.

Like in the color spectrum it was decent, there would more spectacular colors. Colors that didn’t vex Keith like a cursed charm.

…But Lance’s eyes were doing their very best to mimic the ocean and pull Keith into the watery depths and fooled the dual mind of man and alpha with the ripple of water and the suffocation of water in his lungs.

Also, Lance wore an overly loose tank top with ripped jeans and Keith could see down his shirt if he so wished. And how kind of Lance, how benevolent, to give Keith the freedom of looking at his naked skin whenever he liked. Now he had to look there too, the fuck.

_Your face is stupid and a distraction. Why are you torturing me?_

His face must be either blatantly transparent with the radio static of his inner monologue or his alpha was pulsing out the car battery, cigar smoke scent of want cause there was more than Lance at the moment, the omega surfaced with its syrupy sweet aroma.

“So how about we get inside and stop standing with our dicks out,” Lance murmured and there was a dark, sensual quality to his voice but the voice spoke along with him. Separated. An echo. Lance rubbed his throat, toning down the omega.

He felt his blood slugged through his body, a slow lumbering beast in the paper thin channels of his veins. Couldn’t put his finger on the last he had a sensation like this, an active awareness of blood shifting within; though chances had it he had a similar one when he got stabbed in Galra territory but blood went out of him and not collecting within the center.

When he gripped the doorway, it was for his legitimate benefit. “Yea. Come on.” He gestured, telling his body to put that blood where it belonged and not to his dick.

Lance lifted the case and prepared their playing field, Keith pulled a few beers out of the fridge. He edged the rim of the cap to the counter and hammered the side of his fist to it, popping both caps smoothly.

Hell yea.

The alpha tapped a finger along Lance’s brown bicep and shut down the lightning bolt zig-zagging on his skin.  “Here.”

“Thanks,” Lance said, then let a thoughtful expression cross his face. “Gotta admit, I didn’t think you would text.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Just a thought,” Lance said, shrugging, pointedly not looking up from the table to say it directly to Keith.  A saltiness clouded the saccharine nature of his scent and his alpha instantly told Keith the origin of it— an omission of a truth.

“I told you I’m sticking to you like glue. So expect them from now on.”

“Probably will be the one time I won't mind a cop harassing me.”

“You’ll change your mind after I beat you. I know your technique.”

“Man that sounds like bullshit,” Lance giggled.

Keith got in his face, chewing on his lip so he didn’t blow it and giggle like a school boy. “Doctor Lance, are you questioning my integrity as a surgeon?”

Lance’s trademark lazy grin made a reappearance. Mr. Riptide, all lightning bolts and water eyes and easy, easy charm.   “No. But any surgeon worth his salt knows that a true surgeon lets his scalpel do all the talking.”

“Those are tweezers.”

“Shut up and use your imagination, Keith.”

Keith closed his eyes, “Okay.” He opened them.  “Still tweezers.”

“Sit your ass down,” Lance laughed.

“Rock, paper, scissor to decide who goes first?”

“Ok. On three. One. Two. Three. Shoot. Fuck.”

Keith grabbed the tweezer, “You never learn.”

“Well, I gotta let you have one win or you’ll get mad.”

“Anything to protect your ego.”

Four bottles later and an hour of intense role-playing and eye staring, Keith dethroned the ten year champion.

Lance planted his face on the table.

Keith shot out the chair and clapped. “My crown. My throne. King. King.  Lance, get up and celebrate.”

“I’m in mourning. Fuck off.”

Keith shook the omega’s limp body. “Second place is good.”

Lance popped his head up. “Second? I go for gold, baby.”

The alpha squatted with his face dangerously close to Lance’s, he laughed airily. “Well settle for silver for tonight.”

“Don’t feel like settling,” Lance said. He looked at Keith’s mouth and he could come from the simple flicker alone, from the weight of arousal brewing with the perfect components of a chaotic storm, from the way Lance managed to be a stranger and an old lover in the measure of a nanosecond close and afar, from the impish curve on his Cadillac lips.

His alpha pressed under his skin, moving and pacing from the hint of omega wet in his mouth. Yea Keith fucking heard him. Knew if he didn’t move away that they would kiss too and yes, yes there was the issue of Lance’s ex and whether they would get together or if Lance wanted sex or a relationship. Desire didn’t sweep away these unknowns.

“How about I give you somethin’, a prize?” Keith suggested, _praying_ for Lance to say _yes Keith, I want your mouth_.

But he got something else. “Alright. I want you to dance to _Magic Dance_.”

“Wait, what?” Keith blinked because the mood was romantic, right; there were sexual charges going on. Lance’s look could not be misinterpreted for anything else than sex in a hand grenade.

It was there…granted Keith was far from an expert in the field of romance, guns and combat undoubtedly, but he knew when Valentine’s was, remembered anniversaries, held his partner’s hand while they walked in the park, and understood that red roses spoke more about his wrongdoing than a admission of his feelings.

So he was not a complete tool.

The fuck just happened?

“Yup. Dance and I’ll be happy,” Lance said, blind to the 360 spins twirling Keith’s brain around like a ride.

This is was good, right; they’re friends…?

Keith scowled, “I don’t dance.”

“You said I’d get a prize,” the omega crossed his arms and jerked his chin.

“So your prize is my humiliation?”

“Of course. Unless you had something else in mind. C’mon, don’t tell me the big alpha is too chicken to dance.”

“If you think calling me a chicken is going to get me—“

Lance flapped his arms and bobbed his head with a jerky stiffness found in birds, he chirped next, demeaning Keith. Actually it stripped every sexual bone in the alpha. Where he originally wanted to pin Lance and kiss him until the air in his lungs were Keith’s, he wanted to sit Lance in his lap and coil him safely in cashmere soft blankets and bubble wrap.

“Fine.”

Lance clucked, speaking chicken. “Bar..ba-ba.”

“Shut up I’m doing it.”

Chicken Lance followed Keith into the living room where the alpha switched on his laptop. To further annoy him, Lance pretended to pick food off of Keith’s neck. “Oh my god. What is wrong with you?”

Lance opened his mouth, possibly to converse some more in chicken dialect so Keith gave him the finger. “Is normal Lance coming back or is Howard staying with me the whole night?”

“Howard is a duck. I am clearly a chicken,” Lance explained with slowness meant to suggest that Keith was the idiot here. Not him, the guy clucking like a bird.

Dumbass.

Keith made a fist and shook it very sternly in Lance’s direction. “I’ll make you into a chicken nugget if you don’t stop.”

“Dude we should get some. After you dance for my amusement obviously.”

“After, what’s the name again?”

“You inbred, have you never seen _Labyrinth_?”

“Is David Bowie in it?”

“Yea.”

“Oh! Okay now I know what song you’re talking about.” Keith typed away. “Found it.”

“Give me a minute. I want to be comfortable,” Lance moved around the decorative pillows and lounged his body lengthwise on the sofa. He clapped. “Doctor Keith you have the floor.”

Keith shuffled awkwardly, throwing his arms in random and wild directions, feeling like a rowboat with a hole in the hub.

“Wow,” Lance cringed.

“I don’t know how to dance,” Keith snipped heatedly.

“Here,” Lance got off his throne and helped Keith. “Like this.”

Keith slotted to the hand on his back and the hand gripping his own and followed into the pressure applied on his spine. Lance moved them forward, back, and then to the side. It was tender and unfairly sweet given that a popish melody playing in the background. It shouldn’t suit this or them.

It should all fall apart like cards stacked on top of cards, glass goblet piled on glass with champagne in the belly, a delicate act of balance and learning the right angle so the tower remained erect. Surely there would be the collapse about now…you know the wrong move.

It never came and Keith wondered how he could feel distinctly pink inside, a lover’s pink, the kind polished into ocean white pearls.

“Uh.  This is the waltz, right?”

“No salsa.” Lance used the hand on Keith’s back to twirl him away and back in. “Well sorta. This is pretty basic but couples dance like this. Usually it’s a lot of foot work, spinning, and grinding

“So you dance too?”

“Dance. Sing.” Lance spun Keith away again and the alpha moved out smoother this time and pressed back in without Lance’s help. “See. You can dance.”

“Barely.”

“No, no. Your hips are moving in time with the rhythm too.”

The alpha glared at Lance’s earth brown collarbone and had the immediate and insistent urge to lick it. Keith decided it would be safer to fix his eyes on the wall, he never had these kind of urges when he looked at it. “This is so gay.”

Lance brought Keith’s man above them and prompted him into a spin after some persuasion. One twirl later, he asked. “How is this in any way, shape, or form gay?”

“I would rather eat a tub of cum.”

“That reminds me,” said Lance. “You promised me chicken nuggets.”

“Cum makes you hungry?” Keith joked, hoping to get Lance a little red under the collar.

The plan backfired horribly when the omega jerked Keith to his chest and rolled his hips, coming teasingly close to full on grinding against Keith.

Lance smirked when some redness filled Keith’s face. Note to self— save jokes for a time where Lance wasn’t given an all season pass to his body.

At least his cock filled to a half chub, undetectable unless Lance made a second go at fully grinding into him.

“Sometimes. Mostly getting fucked does it for me.”

That half chub?

Full chub now.

Fucking asshole.

 

 

[x]

 

 

“Don’t get sauce all over my seats,” Keith warned upon hearing the breakage of the seal on the plastic honey packet. Icy rain watered down his hair from their bolt to the car Keith felt like a dog left in the rain.

On the other hand rain water suited Lance. Made his clothes clingy and transparent.

Lance halted his pre-eating routine to stare across sheepishly, “What if I promise to lick it off?”

Come on, they were eating.

Could this one thing be not a thinly conceal sexual innuendo?

“The answer is still no.”

“Killjoy.” At Keith’s powerful glare, Lance surrendered. “I’ll be careful. Look I’ll even use the napkins.”

Oh you mean the _wet_ napkins in the _soaked_ bag sitting between the console, those napkins?

Rain pelted the windshield and created a smearing effect on the world beyond the glass, distorting the shapes of people and cars and smudging the street lights into star bursts. A smart Keith would’ve insisted they dined inside the place but in the car was private and exclusive.

“Does it taste any good?” Keith asked, watching Lance dunk his nugget into the honey.

“Yea. Try it,” he dunked the same nugget he bit into and showed it to Keith. His uneven teeth were left in the meat.

 _At least one part of you isn’t perfect_ , Keith thought.

Still, crooked teeth on Lance were an abrupt quality that he liked very much. He had a new respect for them. Wondered that if Lance ever nipped him he would feel their odd points. If his teeth would show better on his neck or on his collar bones.

“Ew. Your germs are on it,” said Keith like he didn’t want to eat Lance thoroughly and completely through his ass.

Spit swap, gross.

Rimming Lance to the core until the omega’s sweet slick drowned out his lungs and sent Keith to a painful but erotic early grave, so not gross.

Semantics, people.

He bit into it as Lance was about to pull away and present him with a germ free nugget. Keith licked honey smearing the corners of his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “That’s kinda good.”

Lance stared out the window, the shadows of rain's spattering drew dark shapes on his face. The omega spoke with a sound so untrue of his warm and proud personality. “We should do this. Like hang…if you want. Don’t feel like you got to just cause Shiro and Allura are getting hitched.”

“Sure,” Keith dipped his nugget into Lance’s honey.

Lance did a double take and asked, “Sure?”

“Yea.”

“O-oh. Well that’s cool. Great,” he babbled hurriedly. “Hey! Stop taking all the honey.”

“Hell no. I’m hooked and it’s all your fault. Deal with it.”

 

 

[x]

 

The counter took their tickets and ripped the stubs in half, handing the paper back with a monotone, “Enjoy your show.”

“Let’s get popcorn and a drink,” Pidge decided and got in line.

Keith read the prices and food options on the lit up menus.

“So did my fashion skills save you or what, did you get the guy?”

“I’m not trying to get Lance.”

Lie.

“And Santa Claus is real and when you put your tooth under the pillow, it’s a pretty fairy that leaves you a dollar, not your parents. Oh and Harambe is a good meme.”

“I like talking to him.”

Truth.

She nudged his arm and crudely waggled her eyebrows. “And…?”

“Fine. If he gave me a chance I would fuck him to the center of the Earth. Happy?”

A mother with her two daughters fired Keith a look of utter rage and reproach. When he noticed the straight edged bob cut, the faded baby blue mom jeans, and the white tennis shoes; Keith started to fear some genuine concern for his life.

Pidge pretended to scold him. The smile she sported was too unkind to be categorized as a smile. No, evil saturated it. Tiny, Mini Reese sized evil. “Keith!”

She slapped his gut for drama and his breath came a second late, evil and an arm to make Wonder Woman proud.

“You did that on purpose,” he hissed as soon as mama lioness and her cubs scooted a far as they could without bumping into the person in front of them.

He hunched his shoulders to appear ominous.

Pidge browsed the candy rack and grabbed a box of Snow Caps.

“Sinner,” she whispered and if she had any height it would’ve floated into his ear. Instead, it came from under the line of his shoulder blade.

“Just for that I’m going to make stupid comments throughout the whole movie.”

“No candy for you.”

“Like I want any.” He knotted his arms and turned his face.

Pidge rattled the box enticingly. “Oh. Keith. Candy.”

His face turned slightly, tempted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall know where to find me at if i ever get my lazy ass online
> 
> @ pro-derp- tumblr  
> @ angry_latte- twitter


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to get this one in early cause i close today and open tomorrow morning. pray for me.
> 
> I swear i will get to all your kind feedback; they mean the world and keep my ass motivated and inspired.

Keith rolled the Ford in the space and hopped out; adjusting his belt around his hips, Pidge and Matt weren’t far behind him. Clouds blotted out the sun but not the crystal blue sky.

Keith leaned his elbow on the black iron fence and whistled at Shiro and Ulaz who were in the middle of a game of b-ball with a group of high schoolers.

Shiro looked back, “Oops.” He made a pass to a tall, lanky beta and walked on the wet grass.

Keith tipped his head, seeing past his brother to the old court with sun-bleached lines, the weeds growing out of the cracks in the concrete, and the ratty net hanging limply on the hoop. “Don’t you have a case to work on?”

Shiro’s poker face was lousy for a cop. “Waiting to hear back from my CIs if you must know. Hey Matt, heard you got a Regan on your first try.”

Matt’s face went unpleasant at the reminder, “Does the whole department know about that?”

“Oh yea. It means you’re going to have a good year.”

“No it doesn’t,” Keith snorted, pinching his brother abnormally thick forearm. Not a trace of fat could be found on him

Ulaz jogged over, hair matted with sweat, and tagged himself out of the game. The high schoolers complained. “Ah, it’s the alpha that got slimed.”

“Stop making it worse,” Matt pleaded.

“It did look green. Like neon green, remember?” Pidge said.

Matt raised his eyebrows, “No. I do not remember because there was vomit on me.”

“Bet they didn’t tell you rookies about that in the academy,” Pidge laughed.

Shiro pointed lazily, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on the west side this afternoon.”

“We’re on lunch.”

“So a game of ball isn’t out of the question?”

“Am I hearing this right, scout boy Shiro is bending the rules, hell musta frozen over.”

“And I’ll kick your ass too, baby brother.”

Keith unbuckled his belt, passed it to Pidge, and vaulted over the fence. “You’re so dead, Shiro.”

“Oh. So scary,” Shiro mocked, jogging backward. “You can’t even reach the top shelf.”

“Yea and you have Athlete’s Foot.”

“You wet the bed.”

“So did you! And you blamed it on me.”

Matt gaped dumbly at the two top alpha’s retreating figures, the teenagers greeted the officers with a whoop and fought over who got who on their team.

Pidge lifted her body on the fence and kicked her legs out idly.

“Shouldn’t we get back to work?”

“Bro, you gotta learn to let loose.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

On Saturday night patrol, Keith got a text from Lance. The car was parked in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts and Pidge and Matt were inside getting some heavy duty caffeine to keep them alert for the shift, so he felt safe to answer it.

_Lance_

_Got plans tom?_

_Keith_

_Free day. Wats up?_

_Lance_

_Feel like goin to 6 Flags? A friend bailed on Hunk._

_Keith_

_So I’m your second choice. Rude af_

_Lance_

_How dare you. Your number one in ma book. Please cume. It gonna be me and the lovers and the kids_

_Lance_

_Cum*  ^_~_

_Keith_

_You should fit with the children_

_Lance_

_KEITH. CUM. WITH. ME_

_Keith_

_Stop writing cum_

_Lance_

_Cum_

_Lance_

_I’ll stop if you do_

_Keith_

_Okay but I’ll need caffeine._

_Lance_

_Got you, boo_

_Keith_

_And youre goin on the rollercoasters with me._

_Lance_

_That got me hard, holy shit_

_Keith_

_Jackass. Ttyl. Gotta keep gotham safe_

_Lance_

_Stay safe, Keith-man_

Keith stared at the white screen, mind and body suddenly rejuvenated. Work for the night and Lance in the morning; his body was going to hate him Monday morning.

He reread their conversation, laughing privately at Lance’s horrid spelling and awful jokes.

What was an all-nighter to that?

What was sleep to a heart fluttering with butterflies?

What was a bed to a smile that shamed the whole cosmos?

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance flew off the sofa and started doing the Running Man in the middle of the kitchen. Hunk and Shay overheard his celebration and shouted from the living room.

“Keith’s coming?”

Lance moonwalked his way into the living room and hammered on an air guitar it in front of the flat screen. “He. Said. Yes.”

“I told you he would, ” Shay said, munching on cheddar chips

Hunk shook his head, fondness warming his kind features. “Did you use the story about my friend bailing?”

“Yup.”

“Wuss.”

“Your mom’s a wuss.”

“We have the same mother,” Hunk said.

Thinking of Keith, talking to Keith, being around Keith— there were chords being struck within him, major chords. No minors. Lance had dated guys before, been with Lotor for a long while, so he knew when he liked a guy but crushes had their symptoms and none were applying to Keith.

Actually, they were a health hazard, Lance would need to check with his medical insurance provider about it—

Let him put it like this—

If crushes put butterflies in your belly then whatever Keith did to him put Hornets in his. Poking and stinging. Buzzing and buzzing.

His heart was similarly fucked—

Making Lance feel as though his heart was hooked up to a car battery and getting a jump each time Keith’s stony face softened with a laugh, each time he rolled his eyes at one of Lance’s awful jokes, each time he thought Keith might kiss him but didn’t.

His knees didn’t weaken—

First, he had no knees.  Keith didn’t pull the ground from under his feet, he obliterated the earth, gravel, sand and all.

So imagine yourself minus knees and ground for leverage and a firestorm drawing in everything within its gravitational pull. In this equation, that included you. Oh yea and no brakes or S.O.S signals either.

Essentially—

It was a lot like sitting inside a burning house; the flames licked near but never touched his skin. Hot but manageable. A nice house though, very modern with marble floors veined with gold and blue, espresso cabinets. 

Sunday could not come any sooner.

He watched mindless reality TV with Hunk and Shay to mute the noisy, angry hornets in his gut and his omega _singing_.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith regretted ever agreeing to morning plans the night after a graveyard shift all the all way up until Lance rapped on his door with the sun on his back and a large Styrofoam cup of coffee and a bagel. Blinking at Lance’s radiant silhouette he mumbled something in his bone tired state and gestured Lance in so he could get dress and fuel up.

Lance undid the sheets, which Keith went through the slow and painful process of neatly folding across the mattress, and snuggled under the covers. Anyone else and they would be on the receiving end of his scowl and an ear tearing. Instead, Keith stared at his head pillowed in his bed, the covers a blood red to his earth brown bared shoulders, and thought, _yea you’re home_.

 

 

_Omega_

_Safe_

_Home_

_With me_

He pretended to rifle through the nightstand beside the bed and ruffled Lance’s hair, finding it easy to comb through and harder to stop.

Lance hummed and moved into his palm. “You’re fuckin’ lazy,” Keith said, voice gritty and heavy from working the night.

Lance used his pillow as a stand and looked at his face, “If you’re too tired—“

“I said I would go and I’m going. I’m gonna brush my teeth. Fix my bed.”

As requested Lance tidied up his mess and waited on the edge of the bed with his phone in his hand. Keith padded out and lightly tugged on his ear. He shut off the lights and left the windows closed with the aroma of honey and rainwater growing traces of Lance.

 

 

[x]

 

 

They’re all carpooling with Allura whose Nissan Armada seated eight comfortably and more if you didn’t mind an ass in your lap. Hence Keith’s current predicament. Allura and Shiro manned the front. Gabby and her two friends snapchatted their life away in the seat behind the two alphas. It left the back seat an extra person since Shay and Hunk were already cozy and buckled in. That left a certain ass in his lap and an hour drive in his half-dead and half-alive state to the amusement park.

He would probably die today.

“You okay back there?”

Keith?

Fine.

Dandy actually.

Loved having the person he been pinning and — fine— jerking off about pressing their ass against him whenever the car bumped over a pot hole or swerved swiftly into another street with said person’s entire family in the car as well.

“Fine,” he said through his teeth, wishing to grab Lance firmly by the hips and press into him thickly like he would if they were alone and had Lance’s full consent to tear him apart as an alpha only could.

Yet he gripped the seat instead and put his face to the open window and let the whipping wind fly through his hair and clear his head from the omega’s honey sweet scent.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lance grab his phone and open a message and second after he finished texting Keith’s cell buzzed in his back pocket. He had to wiggle Lance around to get to it.

 

_Lance_

_Lets jump into on comin traffic_

_Keith_

_You first_

_Lance_

_Sneaky alpha. Am I heavy? I feel like I’m heavy_

Keith bounced one knee, jostling Lance forward and into gripping the headrest in front, then texted with a toothy smirk as Lance stared wide eye debating whether to be angry or aroused.

 

_Keith_

_Like that?_

_Lance_

_This is getting sexual. Me gusta_

_Keith_

_You wish. Aren’t you numb?_

_Lance_

_You boys always thinkin about da butt. If I get numb I’ll wiggle_

 

Lance slapped the headrest, “Yo, can we get some music here?”

Allura watched traffic and blindly held out her phone. “Pass Lance my phone, would you Shiro?”

Shiro turned and handed it to Gabby who refused protocol and shuffled through Pandora.

Lance hollered from the rear. “Hey, barely legal, give me the phone.”

“You’ll put somthin’ lame.”

The omega pulled up straight. “Unless you want Jake flying out the window, give me the phone.”

Jake stiffened and clutched his seatbelt and engaged the lock on the passenger door.

“Shiro,” Gabby ratted.

Allura glared through the rearview mirror. “You guys need to stop bringing Shiro into your arguments. He’s not your cop. He’s mine.”

Lance stuck his hand under his armpit and flapped out fart noises.

Hunk joined in.

The girls growled in frustration as every attempt to talk was thwarted by a fart noise.

Shiro tried to be the voice of reason. “If you throw him out then me and Keith will have to come in and that will be weird for everyone since it’s kinda like murder and we’ll be witnesses.”

Lance rested his chin on top of the seat and squinted, “Kinda murder you say. Please explain.”

Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist and hauled him back. “No murder. I’ll put you in a sleeper hold if I have too.”

Lance let Keith carry his whole weight on his chest. “Keith, why aren’t on my side?”

“Murder him later,” he said, words breaking moist on the back of Lance’s neck.

“Smart idea. No one to report it. I like the way you think.”

Gabby shouted again, “Shiro.”

“I’ll pick the music, how about that?”

Now Keith groaned, sitting up with his arms secured around Lance, and peered over the omega’s shoulder. “Don’t let him. He’ll play _Candy Shop_. Stop him.”

Shiro faced the back, held the phone up for Keith to see him push the play button.

“Shiro,” Allura sighed when _Candy Shop_ pulsed through the speakers.

“We made love to this song,” he said. “I took you to the candy shop.”

Allura drove with one hand on the wheel and jabbed the other in a dismissive manner. The blush flushing her face wasn’t from the blistering heatwave hitting Chicago. “No we did not and no you didn’t.”

“Baby girl don’t you stop,” he sang, egged on by Allura’s agonized groans. “Keep goin’ till you hit the spot. Oh!”

An orchestra of varying sounds of repulsion followed.

Shay chirped after everyone got their scandalize horror out of their system, “Me and Hunk did it to Bonnie Tyler’ s _Total Eclipse of the Heart_.”

“Babe,” Hunk hushed her frantically, a violent red crawling up the shell of his ear.

“Wow. You’re so lame,” Lance laughed as he ran his hands over Keith’s arms.

 The alpha had entirely forgotten he put them there to begin with until Lance’s stomach clenched and rumbled with his boyish laugh.  It seemed more effort to move them and Lance hardly voiced a compliant so Keith didn’t bother and felt each time Lance took a natural breath, the second an abrupt giggle struck him. He felt like lightning, moving and hot, so pretty with colors but hazardous to people.

Hunk poked his head over Shay, who sat between Keith and Hunk, and said, “You did it to Spice Girls.”

Lance snapped his fingers. “It was Ciara, bruh. Get it right.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

“So what rides do you guys want to go on?” Allura asked as she unfolded the map.

The group gathered on the sidelines as families and other groups like themselves ambled through the park. Speakers boomed out today’s current hit songs. Mascots walked around the park, waving at kids and posing for pictures. Toddlers cried in their strollers. Moms screeched at Tyler and Kylie to not touch that and to wait until their father heard about this. Even with the open air and the gusting wind, the place smelled like overpriced junk food, body odor, and the slow suffering of underpaid and overworked teenagers.

Ah, Six Flags.

Six dollars for a bottle of water and thirty for a shitty shot glass with the trademarked six flags on it. But could you price good wholesome family fun; yea it sent you an easy hundred or so.

A sweat started on Keith’s nape and worked a wet stain down his shirt. He felt like a sundae left in the sun for the whole day, Lance passed him one of those reusable plastic water bottles. The mouthpiece still had Lance’s spit on it and he could’ve wipe it off with his shirt except he closed his lips around it and sucked.

Lance watched, sucking on his bottom lip.

“Thirsty?” Keith panted.

“No. Hot.”

Allura whistled at the two caught up in their repressed gay romance, “Hello, Lance and Keith?” She smacked the map. “What rides? I wanna make sure we get on them all at least once.”

“Fucking tea cups,” Lance hooted.

She rolled her eyes and looked at Keith next, “Any ride you wanted on?”

 _Yea, your brother_.

Maybe not say that though because this was a family park and this was an impromptu family trip and they’re going to be family by their sibling’s wedlock.

“Superman.”

“There’s always a long ass line for that one,” Lance said, the sun bleached his blue eyes a brighter shade.

Keith combed back his hair. “Yea cause it’s the best ride.”

“Not even. Raging Bull.”

Hunk said quickly over their voices, “Yea no bull for me or the giant dipper.”

“Hunk,” all three of his siblings countered.

“At least once, Hunk.” Lance tried to negotiate. “You’ll be safe.  I’ll sit right next to you and you can squeeze my hand and scream in my ear all you want. No ball busting. Pinkie swear.”

“That’s a death machine.”

Gabby said, “C’mon Hunk. I’ll go with you too. It’ll be my first time too.”

“Yea because your ass is finally tall enough,” Lance muttered.

Keith covered his snort of laughter by coughing into his hand.

Gabby fumed but reined in her violent tendencies to appear a docile and sweet little thing to her boyfriend, Jake, who had yet to make direct eye contact with Lance. Funny enough the alpha beat Lance in height, an easy six footer, but went meek at the rogue’s resurfacing alpha moments.

“Well we could split up,” Allura theorized, trying to map out the wait time between rides and closing.

Gabby cheered and started to drag Jake and her best friend, Letty, away. “Good idea, let’s go.”

Allura’s laugh stopped Gabby, “Oh no. you kids are not going on your own. One of us goes with you or we all stay together.”

“Really?” Gabby huffed, exasperated with her family’s suffocating protective nature. She waved her arms out, pointing at the mass of people all around them.  “Do you think we’re going to have sex at Six Flags?”

Lance ‘s eyes landed squarely on Jake, “Sorry, that sounds like you two have had sex.”

Jake shook his head hastily, “N-no sir.”

“Me and Keith will watch the kids.”

“No way. Hunk is going with us.” She started pulling Hunk away from the group.

“Or we can stay together,” Hunk suggested as Gabby flapped his arm fruitlessly.

“This is lame.”

Allura leveled an annoyed face on Shiro and gestured huffily at her bickering family, “You want kids? This is what having kids is like. Yelling. Fighting.”

“I thought we would start with one and work our way up,” Shiro said kindly, perfectly in tuned to Allura and her alpha to read the stress mounting from work and coordinating her dream wedding with a planner.

Allura continued, “And what if we have twins on the first go? Twins, Shiro, that’s two of everything. Twice the crying. Twice the diapers. I killed a cactus once in college and I gotta keep a person alive.”

“Babe. Are you pregnant?”

“No!”

“Okay, okay. You’re just stressing over stuff that’s not happening now. Remember today you’re supposed to relax.”

Lance ripped the map of out her hands. “Alright, I’m commanding this unit. Keith is my second in command, all complaints will go directly to him.”

“I am fine,” Allura persisted.

“Look we’ll do the less popular rides first. Eat. Then get on the bigger rides. The crowd will be smaller by then.”

The lines were the less popular rides passed by quicker, thirty minutes or so for each ride, but the time was a forgettable concept with Lance. They leaned against the rails and talked about whatever came to mind. Sometimes the others would join in too and they would debate loudly over the speakers, laughing with their skin tanning and their bodies overheating. Lance already started a golden tan and it grew darker in the overexposed sun. His eyes were almost too blue. His crooked, imperfect teeth white against his brown skin and ruby red lips.

Lance hopped when he spotted the revolving tea cups, “Tea cups, who’s in?”

Allura shook her head, “I’ll pass. That shit makes me nauseous.”

“Same here,” Shiro said.

“Anyone else?” Lance asked the group.

“Are you kiddin, we’re so in,” Gabby answered.

“We’ll look for a place for us to eat while you guys go on,” Shiro decided, taking the map and Allura down the road, arms lassoed warmly on Allura’s hips. The mass of people obscured them, getting the couple lost in the crowd.

“Squares,” Lance snickered privately to Keith and slotted his fingers through the alpha’s not even bothering to entertain this illusion of purely friends. The funny part was that Keith nor Lance looked down to their linked hands, they just _walked_   like _yea this hand belongs to me and I will hold it until I die_. “C’mon. I’ve been dyin’ to get in those cups.”

“Speed junkie.”

A huge crowd of rowdy college kids forced Keith and Lance to push together and Keith overlooked the rank stench of Axe body spray, pizza, and weed. Thought being shouldered by scent dumb humans wasn’t so unpleasant.

“Oh yea. Hunk and I like to get that baby soaring and with you, we might actually break the ride.”

 Hunk and the others already got a spot in line and called the two over as they ambled to the fence.

Lance released his hand and hopped the fence.

Keith did too but he'd like to say he executed it with a coolness and edge to make John Wick cry. And maybe he wanted the thinnest of reasons to be the cool alpha.

“Did I ever tell you Keith that I’m king of the tea cups?”

“No cause I know you just made that shit up. Like right now. You’re not the king of everything.”

“Yes. I am.”

“Not of Operation.”

Lance shielded his face dramatically and hissed like a vampire thrown to the sun, “So ruthless. The deception. The blind cruelty.”

“You’re the king of drama.”

Hunk barked out a gurgly laugh, “So true.”

“Just when you thought you knew a bitch,” Lance mumbled darkly. “I will call the police on you.”

“I am the police.”

“No I meant the rent-a-cops here. They’ll set you straight and not the hetero straight.”

“Thank god for that.”

The line moved up and they ambled further into the shelter of the building, escaping the heat, the laughter and screaming grew stronger. He could faintly see the giant cups zooming past the guard rail. Lance was practically wired and hyped by the time they got to the gate. The second the pimpled faced staff worker unlatched the gate and permitted the running of the bulls, Lance linked fingers again and dragged Keith into a blue rimmed cup. Hunk and Shay climbed in after and hooked the lock.

Lance cracked his fingers. “Gentlemen, we ride.”

Keith rolled his eyes, popped a flat hair band between his teeth, and gathered his hair in one hand and tied it off. Cool air washed down his neck but Lance’s stare swiftly remedied that and reintroduced the sweltering heat to it.

Shay smiled and settled comfortably, snuggled between Hunk and Lance, she stroke Hunk’s arm. “Good luck, baby.”

“I don’t need luck with these arms,” Hunk flexed, letting go of the dial.

“You guys seriously need to get out more.”

“Always talkin’ shit,” Lance joked. “Do you need me to remove the stick up your ass?”

“No. But I could shove one up yours.”

“Is it a long stick or a short one?”

Shay admonished, her voice too flowery and sweet to be anything approaching harsh.  “Guys there’s no butt touching in the tea cup.”

“You have to wait, Keith,” Lance wiggled a finger.

“Try to tide yourself until then, bud.”

The ride attendant made a round on the cups, checking the doors, and started the ride.

They grabbed the dial, working at first in perfect succession gaining momentum from the other person and adding to it, but once the ride started, their bodies sliding in one another in the cups and blurring the world into smudges and impressions of colors and faces, they barely got a hand on the dial.

Lance bumped into him, hard, and fought valiantly to get another spin in but instead fell back into Keith. Felt all that warmth, that masculine softness press to his chest. Felt arms pull on him like a creature from the deep, a myth to the world and a fear to superstitious sailors. Looked down at the crown of Lance’s head, staring and feeling and thinking, _how making times are you going to stop and reanimate me, dude_.

Saw Lance tip his head up and give Keith something that inspired a seed of hope that he was in it too, having his heart start and stop like an old car too stubborn to die out. That this pretense was complete bullshit. That every exclusive touch they stole from one another were intentional and laced with want—

_I want to hold your hand like we’re children._

_I want everyone to see and know we’re fucking stupid and so fucking dumb on each other that we do and say the cheesiest of shit._

_I want rushed morning and gluttonous Friday’s nights where we’re too tired to cook and order take out and kiss in spite of the taste of sugary drinks and junk food on our tongues._

_I want your laughter and your smile when I say horrible jokes_

_And yea, I want us to argue. Not fight but be grown-ups and have the tough conversations adults do and I want us to conquer them. To yell about fixing the house. To nitpick about which paint to use in the kitchen._

_I want the white fence, the golden lab, the horrid paternal vehicle. I want people to look at me and know I have a family at the house. Toys in the hallways. Dogs yapping at the neighbors. Unfinished house products. Painter’s tape on the corner of the wall that we said we’d get too later but never did and never will so we bought a plant to hide the spot._

_I want your name blowing up my phone._

_I want to be lazy and natural around you, knowing you find me beautiful with my face unwashed, with my hair greasy, with my breath putrid._

_I want the beginning, middle, and after of Disney love stories._

No sense.

Getting all twisted and knotted at Six Flags in a tea cup.

No logic.

People said only alphas and omegas could find the truest of bonds because biology designed joining to be between an alpha and an omega but a lot of relationships contradicted that. Shiro and Allura were a living testament to that.

But there was too much in him when he had Lance at his side to not believe maybe those old schoolers were on to something. Maybe not all the facts were wrong. Maybe true bonds existed, true mates.

Cause Keith had waves.

Had the surf, building and rising and curling with white water.

Had the storm uprooting houses, flooding up streets and people’s basements, wetting the pavement with rain.

Had the lightning as it forked the sky. Jagged lances of color and power.

Had earth and it was cause Lance was handing it to him lazily.

Heard his laugh and he got the timid waves on a tranquil beach.

Looked into his eyes and he was blinded by a sudden radiance.

Touched his skin and Keith lost the ground.

 

 

[x]

 

 

“Dinner, boo,” Lance dropped a plate drenched in whip cream, ice cream, hot fudge, and powder sugar.

Keith pulled his lips off the mouth piece on the water bottle and coughed, “You got us funnel cakes.”

“When in Rome.”

“Jesus, this is going to give us a sugar high.”

“Hell yea,” Lance speared a fork through the layers of future love handles and ate a generous serving of ice cream and gooey hot fudge. Cream smeared the sides of his mouth.

Without thinking Keith swiped it with his thumb and licked it off.

Lance stared blankly. “Dude. Seriously.”

“Too gay?”

“I mean…”

“You fucking send me pictures of random dicks that you find on Craigslist.”

“As a gift.”

The sheer stupidy in that had Keith tipping up his head slowly from the melting, gooey messy pooling on the paper plate and blinked once with the maximum quantity of _do you not hear the words coming out of your word_ , and said after a great deal of silence so Lance could maybe think, hey _that’s pretty gay of me to do_. “You’re stupid.”

Lance dipped his finger in cream and just sucked it into his mouth. Yup. No shame. In his soft mouth. Noisy and lewd as though it was a juicy cock— god, Keith, chill.

Then to make this situation a million times worse, because why let Keith have any small mercies,  Lance cocked his mouth into his signature _I walk around with the earth and the moon in my pocket, son_ grin. A real show stopper type of smile that had panties dropping and guys popping strong, paired with a lazy swipe of his tongue over teeth; a medic was needed on standby. “So what if I put whip cream on my dick…”

Where was the medic?

Keith grabbed the plate, scooted back and moved to another table where there was no talk of whip cream topped on private parts. Shiro held in his laughter when Keith sat down.

Alone and abandoned at the table, Lance yelled to his back. “Keith. C’mon man. You knew that was _cumming_ …” The omega snickered to himself then realized his humor failed to woo Keith back to the table and pleaded. “Please sit with me. I’m sorry. Hey don’t fucking eat all of that. Keith, bad!”

Keith picked apart the dough with his fingers, saying loudly to Shiro, “You hear somethin’?”

“Oh. Real nice. I thought we bonded but I see that was a lie.”

“Go sit with him,” Shiro said softly.

“No. He makes bad jokes that I shouldn’t laugh at but I do anyway.”

“Baby come back! You can blame it all on me!” Lance lamented with his unfairly sensual voice.

“Everyone’s looking at him,” Shiro noted, seeing people actually stopping and recording Lance who had started to stand and walk to Keith.

Keith hissed when Lance dropped to one knee and sang, “There was something in the everything about you.”

“This is embarrassing.” Keith shielded his face.

“Sit with me or I swear I’ll to make you dance too.”

“Extortion,” Keith cursed and nudged the paper with the back of his knuckles so Lance could have a nibble.

“I call it friendship but that works too. As long as you know I called dibs on you and everythin then I’m cool.”

“Wow. So that possessive behavior runs in the family,” Shiro said, bumping Allura’s elbow.

“I’m not possessive.”

“You said if you ever caught me with another girl, you would kill her and feed her to me.”

“No way. Wait, did I say that?”

“Yea. It was very romantic and borderline homicidal of you.”

“Well it cause you’re my favorite person.”

Shiro kissed her like they were the ones who started happily ever afters. “I know, babe. You’re my favorite too.”

Keith and Lance booed, “So gross.”, and proceeded to eat like a couple and helped the other scoop a fair share of ice cream or cream on their dough. When cream circled Lance’s lip Keith wiped at it with a napkin wordlessly.

Allura and Shiro shared a mute look and shook their heads, watching the two giggle and snort stupidly happy and compatible as they bickered and flirted.

 Shiro could never say it without making Keith feel exposed but he smiled more with Lance than he ever did with him or Pidge. Keith wasn’t an unhappy person, more a realist than anything with a hard side of cynicism, but he saw a lot of the bad of the world cause of their line of work and with the years it clouded him. Reinforced his hard exterior. But lately, he glowed. Took requests without a flippant comment.  Went out of his way to actually talk to people outside of the alpha unit.

With Lance, he expected a wounded pup. To wallow and crawl back to a bad alpha as many rogues tended to do, they felt their status made them an undesirable mate so a lot of them went back to their first relationship.  But Lance hardly mentioned Lotor. Hardly showed up less than himself. Granted Shiro heard only stories through Allura whenever the couple had a arguments and Lance ran to lick his wounds with her or Hunk, but it seemed half the time he was with Lotor he wasn’t his true self. There was hesitation. Reserves. Fractions of Lance and Lance was not a person to square who he was. It was an endearing characteristic of him that he didn’t care if people liked him or not, if he fitted in or not, he liked himself and he wouldn’t change his humor or his goofy smile.

Shiro looked and saw. Looked and smelled their scents mingle like ivy to a horizontal surface. Then said, “Yea. We’re gross.”

 

[x]

 

It was nighttime by the time they walked across the park and got in line for the Superman ride. True to his word, Hunk flat out hid behind his mate when Lance and the others attempted to persuade him on the Raging Bull or the Giant Dipper. Ditto for this ride as well. So now Hunk was on phone duty with Shay as the group got on.

The kids were excited, duh, breaking their conversation whenever the rollercoaster soared over their heads to stare.

Jake was actually cordial and gentlemanly the whole day. He held Gabby’s hand, didn’t check out the older and more provocatively dressed chicks walking around the park, he wasted twenty bucks trying to win her an oversized unicorn and succeeded.

“What if I fall?” Lance asked hypothetically.

“You’ll probably die so I’ll go to your funeral.”

“You won’t die with me?”

“Uh. No.”

“The fuck, Keith. You’re twisted.”

“I’ll cry at your funeral, happy?”

“No. I’ll be dead.”

“Then don’t die,” he shrugged, pushing his bangs back when the ride zoomed above his head.

“Easy for you to say.”

“We’re at Six Flags.”

“Death Flags,” whispered Lance in that staged voice of his when he was trying earnestly to rein an honest laugh from someone.

Keith turned his head slowly, “Maybe you falling will be a good thing.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

On the ride back Shiro drove with Allura sleepily sitting shotgun, their hands threaded between the console. The others were out cold. Two of the windows were rolled down and allowed the night air to float in soothingly. Keith wanted to sleep, exhausted from work and a day out in the sun, but he had Lance drifting away on his lap and a well an opportunity like this required Keith’s attention

Lance blinked awake, lifting his head up from where he laid it down on Keith’s collar, “Sorry.”

“No. Sleep. It’s cool.” Keith put his head back to his collar. Lance curled instinctively, nose breathing in the alpha’s husky scent.

He shifted until he found a comfortable position and exhaled peacefully. “Thanks. You have fun?”

Keith dragged his hand through Lance’s hair, brushing it over the shell of his ear.  Doing the math, Lance should reek from being out all day in the sun, sweating stains on his tank, eating ice cream and cinnamon pretzels yet he smelled like honey, a storm in the distance, and the ocean.

_You should smell._

_You should feel sticky and gross in my arms._

_Your stupid jokes should annoy me._

_But—_

_You don’t._

_You aren’t._

_And they never do._

_Asshole omega, you were just sitting in some alley and now you’re sitting in my damn arms._

 “Yea. Thanks for inviting me.”

Lance yawned widely. “Any time.”

_Sleep_

_Omega_

_Alpha’s_

_Here_

_Sleep_

_Alpha_

_Will_

_Watch over_

_You_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yall know how it works, i lurk poorly on social media and yall don't call my ass out on it, lol.
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twittter: angry_latte
> 
> quick note: I am two scenes away from completing this fic. It's at a chunky 71k +.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: blood and gun violence.

“Thanks to Shiro and Ulaz, we got a lead on our two favorite gang leaders. Galra and Volt are making a deal. Peace for drugs. Galra needs the supply and Volt has plenty of it. Which is good for us. We can nail these guys,” Coran said.

Shiro walked to the front of the room, taking the stand from Coran.

 Even blinded Keith could read the tension in his body. Knew the severe set of his mouth and that jolting shift from his warm and empathic eyes to the ones looking back like the point of a barrel. Smelled his alpha underneath, pacing heavily like a lion in a cage.

Others would reek of fear, a sickly sour smell, at the prospect. Galra and Volt were the largest and deadliest alpha gangs in Chicago. They had an impressive body count to reinforce the title and some of those numbers wore blue. But Shiro didn’t allow this knowledge to fester inside him. He shut it down and looked around the room of alphas, lending them his strength.

His eyes went quickly over Keith and Pidge. “It’s a huge deal. 50 kilo or more of coke. One of our Cis informed us that Zarkon and Paladin will be there in person to oversee the deal personally. We’ll have four squads for this mission. Two to inflate the building and two more for pursuit.”

Coran nodded, “Our objective is Zarkon and the White Paladin. They will be heavily guarded and the first to flee once we enter the building.” Coran uncapped a dry erase marker and drew a diagram on the blank board of a crudely square house and four stick figures to represent the squads.

He continued, drawing as he spoke. “Squad White Echo and Yellow Jackets will enter the building from the front and the back, secure the contraband and get a visual on our targets. Zarkon and Paladin will be the first to retreat. That’s where squad Red Bull and squad Old Lion come in and pursue. Shiro’s on Paladin. Keith, I want you on Zarkon.”

Keith sat up straight, eyes intense. Body an awakening volcano. His alpha slammed against his skin, violent from the promise of a fight. His bones rattled like iron bars, vibrating waspishly.  Protective because people like them made the streets dangerous for everyone.

For his police family.

 For his friends.

 For Lance.  

“No problem, LT.”

Pidge eyed him from the side.

Keith patted her knee.

She returned the gesture, scent whirling with equal parts eagerness and terror. This was big leagues. This wasn’t two kids dealing a dime bag. No punks tagging properties.

They either went big here or went home in a body bag.

Coran replaced the cap. “Another opportunity like this won’t come often. Make it count. Forty minutes prep, that’s all you got. Suit up and come to me or your squad leader if you have any questions. Let’s show these sorry shits that you don’t mess with blue alphas.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

“Here,” Pidge passed Keith a cast iron black Desert Eagle handgun. She wore stretchy jeans, a long sleeve shirt under a black Kevlar vest. A radio, metal handcuffs, and a pebble gray Beretta hugged her belt.

He picked up an empty magazine, loaded it with brass bullets, and slapped it into the slot. Testing its weight in his hand, Keith sighted the barrel to a blank spot on the wall and felt confident.

Forgoing his shoulder holster for the raid, he holstered the Glock in the holding on his hip. Then he grabbed another hollow mag and slid casings. One clip managed him fine on an easy patrol, today had too many variables though for him to bring less than two.

He loaded the mag and pushed it to the side and started the process again on the third.  “You hook Matt up with a vest?”

Pidge adjusted her ponytail under a police issued baseball cap. “Yea. Where’s yours?”

“I’m better without it,” he said, paying little attention to the expression of disbelief and white hot anger on Pidge’s pixie face.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” she started with an arctic voice. “The fuck you think you are RoboCop, Superman, the Hulk.”

“Pidge,” Keith touched her elbow, trying to pacify her before the whole room of alphas stared at them.

“No, Keith.” Pidge jerked her arm out but thankfully maintained a calm voice. “Look I know we pull a lot of crazy shit and this won’t be the last time we’re goin into the belly of the beast but you can’t keep skimming on shit like this. There’s no way to tell how this will turn. Either, we all go in vests or we don’t go at all.”

“It slows me down,” he explained weakly.

A meek argument one that the female alpha took down with a scowl.

“Better  Zarkon gets away than you dead from a gunshot wound that you could’ve prevented. You’re good, Keith, but you’re not Superman. Besides, you think I wanna go window shopping for a new partner.”

“You just don’t wanna make friends.”

“No. It’s just I like the ones I have. I’ll check in on Shiro and Ulaz. Knowing him his vest will be on backward or something’.”

“Look at all the maternal instinct.”

“Fuck you.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Apparently, Pidge wasn’t the only one with her share of concerns in regards to Keith’s gun-ho attitude on the field because Shiro squeezed through the suits of blues in the garage. One peek at his worry stricken face and Keith could recite word for word what he was about to preach. Shiro sold the fearsome leader persona well to the masses but privately he murmured through his reservations.

“Keith—“

He cut his brother off, hoping to thwart the ball of apprehension churning in his gut. “I know. Don’t be a hot head. Follow orders. Shoot if your life—”

“No. I mean, well yea that but..” The alpha scrubbed a tremoring hand through his short hair. “Play this smart, Keith. It’s not just your ass on the line.”

“Shiro, you know I would throw my ass in the fire for Pidge and Matt.”

“That’s the problem. I’m not saying don’t protect your squad. I’m saying work with them so you all come back in one piece. I don’t want to bury you.”

Keith exhaled an unexpected breath, air punching out as though Shiro handed him a fist instead of words. “Jesus, Shiro. Calm down.”

They’re men of the law. The end of a gun or the sharp tip of a knife wasn't unfamiliar and they hobbled into the department with cuts and bruises but they rarely touched the subject of being KIA. Maybe it was the future wife, having Shiro think of ten to fifteen years down the line.

“Zarkon’s not a good guy.”

“Believe me I know.”

“He put a few cops in the ground,” Shiro added. Maybe he was hopeful informing Keith would instill some restraint but he saw it as all the more reason to get lazy with his aim.

“And that’s why I’m goin’ to put a few bullets in his ass before I cuff him. Don’t worry, a bullet in the ass is livable.”

“You’re tryin to make me laugh,” Shiro pressed his lips in a pout.

“Yea and I don’t need a second person telling me to watch out. You guys are going to jinx me.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop that. No puppy eyes, Shiro.”

“I do not have puppy eyes.”

“Yea, okay.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

“ _Squad Yellow Jackets approaching from the south. Over,_ ” the radio in the police car crackled.

Another voice talked through the radio waves, “ _10-4. Squad Echo on twelve to your location Over._ ”

“ _Yellow Jackets in position_. Over”

Coran’s voice ordered through the frequencies, “ _Stand-by. Echo, what’s your position_?”   

“ _We’re secure at the north entrance, sir_.”

“ _10-4”_

_“Taking down the door in three, two, one...”_

Keith watched in the concealed Charger as both squads busted down the door with a battering ram. They filed in with rapid but precise strides through the doorway, the stock of their guns pressed to the flat of their shoulder decked out in black SWAT gear. The guns were AR-15s, solid black, and military approved. Helms limited their head movements but provided additional protection for the firefight to come.

Wouldn’t be long until the red muzzles sparked inside like firecrackers.

Wouldn’t be long until the thunderous pop of bullets turned the quiet afternoon into a battlefield.

Keith felt his squad. Felt their alphas claw at their skin.

They trained for this.

Their biology made them adept for the fight. For the fits. For the guns.

Little war machines, they responded best under hellfire and high stakes. Functioned well when bullets drilled into the sides of cars, cracked spider webs in windows, cratered the stone walls with pock holes.

Matt palmed the gun slotted in his holster, learning its shape, testing himself to find the most efficient and time-saving way to rip it out during the firefight.

Pidge fiddled the safety off and slid barrel into the holster and left it unclipped, adapted and well trained. Her small hands coolly laid on her lap.

Keith had the car in neutral, waiting, dark sapphire eyes acting like a hawk in the sky.

Cars curbed the sidewalk.

Shiro’s squad was parked on the street adjacent to them with the engine rumbling lowly.

Then, startlingly in the quiet disordered neighborhood of Southside Chicago, gunfire. Booming. Popping. Sharp. Penetrating. Incredible. Blood rushing. It echoed down the road, down the sidewalk, into the air, an unforgettable sound especially when it grew in mass.

Red flashed in the windows. Voices spoke evenly on the radio. So far one officer was wounded. Thugs knew how to buy guns off the market for a cheap price but they had no formal training to make each bullet count. They sprayed fire while his brothers and sisters in blue popped in concise bursts.

“ _Got a visual on your prom dates. You fellas better get ready_ ,” one the alpha radioed in.

Keith lifted the receiver and thumbed the button, “How’s my date lookin’? Over.”

“ _Real eager to meet you_. _Probably gonna put out for you._ ”

 Keith passed the receiver to Pidge and gripped the gear shift and kept a tight visual on the building. A group of men in black combat gear ushered out a man, surrounding him thickly like wasps. The man walked with his head low, arrogantly pristine with his black hair gelled like a helmet and plum colored suit.

Zarkon, Keith thought, remembering his awful fondness for dressing regularly in dark shades of purple as if he liked being a loud but unhittable target. Easy to spot but cumbersome to nail down in the courtroom.

“We have eyes on Z,” Pidge said into the radio.

Keith switched into drive. Braced his foot on the brake.

Another group piled out, men protecting their superior. Keith caught a fleeting glimpse but he knew that brown face and white silky hair anywhere.

“Paladin’s out too,” Pidge reported, across the road Shiro’s unmarked Charger roared.

More alphas scurried a second after like vermin spotted under a light but the big bosses could care less if one low-jean riding punk served half his life in a cell.  Their life had more value. Low level thugs were a dime a dozen, put five in a cell and ten more waltzed in looking for to fill the vacancy. They’re not Keith’s problem anyway

Zarkon climbed into the back of a black Lexus with his bodyguards jumping in another car behind him. They screeched on to the road, tire marks scarring the road.

Keith let them zoomed past his position before he pulled out and blared the siren.

Hunting season and you’re the game, Zarkon.

The sirens didn’t do shit, obviously, no druglord with the city gunning for his trail would pull for the red, white, and blue but it herded pedestrians on the street out of the way and far from the stray bullets that Zarkon’s bodyguard were issuing from the second car. Beside speed, the car was modded with a bulletproof windshield so the brass bullets either drilled the cosmetic surface or they ricocheted off. The rest of the car ate the bullets as they came.

Keith maneuvered wildly, knowing their aim was for the tires more than their heads.

“I can’t get a shot at the Lexus,” Pidge complained, pulling her torso back into the car. “Not with the second car fuckin’ up my shots.”

“I got an idea,” Keith slammed on the brakes, threw the gear in reserve, and spun down a street. He jerked the car down an alley next, bouncing it over speed bumps.

Matt and Pidge braced themselves.

“Keith, speed bump!” Matt warned. “J-jesus! Can this car take this?”

Pidge grinned, gripping the handlebar. “You god damn genius.”

“Get ready. We’re cutting them off,” Keith said, wheeling out of the alley to go back on to the street. He barreled back into the intersection, using the car as a physical barrier. The Lexus braked hard, skirting sideways. Matt set his gun to the window, shot through the glass first and popped two rounds into the tires.

The second car swerved between the Lexus and the Charger and the guard kicked out the doors and fired from there.

Keith and his squad went out the other side and took point, trading off rounds.

Glass splintered and rain down the road.

Bullets zipped off the bumper.

“Well we got them to stop,” Pidge said with her back to the car as she slid out an empty clip. She slapped a fresh one into the slot.

Matt crouched down and reloaded, “We should call for back up.”

A bullet zipped over Pidge’s head and drilled into the floor. “I second that. We got them pin. The Lexus won’t get away and they can’t get Zarkon into the car without us firing.”

Keith peeked behind the trunk and immediately ducked back in cover just as a round of bullets shot off. One of the alphas fired at the spot his head once occupied. The alpha peered behind the car again and fired, hitting cleanly through a window. “They’re goin to move him.”

“To where? Half of Galra is getting cuffed right now.”

“I’m goin on foot,” Keith set his gun to the side and started to unbuckle his protective vest.

Pidge turned and returned fire, shooting off rounds expertly. She squatted down once she saw Keith wrestling with his vest. “What the fuck are you doin?”

Keith pulled the vest over his head, “As soon as Zarkon moves you guys lay a suppressing fire so I can follow. Then radio in back up.”

“Fuck that,” she said.

“No. He’s right. The smart move right now is for Zarkon to escape while his guards distract us. There’s plenty of alleyways for him to get lost long enough to call in someone. Only half of Galra was at that meeting, remember.”

Keith looked at the pup— not pup, alpha, seeing all his weeks of training under him showing in Matt’s commanding voice, in his refined movements, in the way he wore the scent and strength of an alpha.

Keith  said, “Thanks, Matt.”

“Oh my god. This is fuckin’ stupid,” Pidge grumbled.

 A bullet hit one of the tires and air hissed out waspishly.  The Charger’s weight leaned forward on the flat. “Thanks assholes!” Pidge clamored.

“Someone give me a status update. Is there movement in the Lexus?”

Matt dispatched a round, moved out of cover to checked, and kneeled. Bullets zipped by, ill timed. “Yea. You can barely see but someone’s movin to the backseat.”

Keith moved his feet under him in a half crouch with his gun gripped in both hands.

“We just talked about this,” Pidge yelled over the pop of gunfire.

“Not now,” Keith ordered. “Matt?”

“Checking…”

“Oh, when then, huh?” Pidge continued. “When you’re in the hospital or in the grave—“

Matt called, “Keith, he’s moving now. Heading to our eleven.”

“Lay down some cover.”

Matt and Pidge threw their arms over the car and dealt out a heavy rain of bullets. Keith sprinted out of his crouch— moving his body lightning quick and low like a big cat— slid across the hood blocking his way, and charged after Zarkon.

Just realizing Keith’s movements, strays bullets followed his heel and nearly grazed his calf.

The alpha pushed his legs harder.

Let _the alpha_ inside know it was time to not be a man but the beast. The hound.

Happily, his alpha answered the call, fueling his body, channeling power into his limbs.

The pavement blurred in his vision but the hard impact of his boots pounding it never allowed him to forget its presence.

In the distant, gunfire popped and the sirens wailed.

His radio crackled with static.

Keith had no time.

_His alpha_ couldn’t spare it. It went unanswered.

Keith tracked Zarkon down the alley, stumbling every so often when the road sank or a broken bottle rolled into the way. Zarkon zig-zagged, wise enough to know the pattern made it more difficult on the alpha to get a steady sight on him.

Zarkon climbed a fence, mounting the links and launching his body over, and blitzed through the backyard and down the gangway.

Keith vaulted easily, grunting slightly when he hit the pavement.

The front gate in the gangway was swinging.

Keith pushed through, seeing a startled couple watch from the rear window.

He stopped and looked and saw no one but random civilians watching him.

_The alpha_ sniffed the air and searched for Zarkon’s scent but the air was too clogged and he only caught the ghost of it at the start.

A girl walked up to him and pointed to a brown bricked building, “He went that way, policeman.”

Keith nodded his thanks and told the girl to go inside and stay until it was safe.

He followed the girl’s direction and approached the quiet house with measured steps. The house was vacated, windows black with no one inside but a smell hovered in the backyard.

Zarkon stared at the seven feet tall brick wall.

_The alpha_ walked slowly, bringing his gun up and lined the sight of the barrel to the back of Zarkon’s head. “Hands behind your head.”

Zarkon sighed and folded his hands.

“Turn. Slowly.”

He did and looked at Keith dully. “Officer—“

“You’re under arrest. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the—“

“I can give you a lot of money. Just look the other way. How many hours are you pullin’, huh? For what pay? You can live like a king with me. Half a million.”

“I’m not for sale.”

“Everyone has a price.”

“I don’t.”

Zarkon lowered his hands, “That’s a shame.”

Keith’s fingers tensed. He hugged the trigger, his force measured precisely. “I said, hands behind you—“

Gunfire rang profoundly. Rattled his head like a church bell.

Worse than the incredible noise pulsing through his skull was the _incredible_ pain in his gut. Pain unimaginable. Pain so wrenching and cruel that his bones quivered under it, weak already. Overpowered within seconds. Heartbeat drummed like a low bass in his ears. Keith looked down to the source of it, knowing that it was a bullet in him but needing to see it, and saw a dark wetness dampening his shirt.

He pressed his hand to it, feeling heat and another searing pulse of pain.

Blood.

His blood.

Fuck.

“Boss,” one of Zarkon’s alpha walked past Keith as the pain and growing blood loss took its toll and brought his knees out from under him.

Keith’s gun clattered on the concrete.

He closed his eyes against the pain, looking for some relief to it but any movement what so ever returned it tenfold. He gasped, voice guttural.

The alphas talked over his hoarse breaths as Keith tried to channel the burning in his gut; probably accustomed to alphas choking while they balanced life and death in their hands One cop to a ganglord was of little merit.

“Thace, where are the others?” Zarkon asked calmly.

“Cuffed. Cops got them wearing silver.”

“Then they weren’t very good,” he hummed, fixing the lapels of his plum suit. Dust and dirt ruined the pristine nature of it.

Thace looked down at Keith, then balanced on the balls of his feet.

Keith felt a cold barrel press to the side of his head. “Want me to cap this one?”

Keith moved his head carefully so Thace’s fingers didn’t get trigger happy and blow his fucking brains. He chewed on his pain like gum and spat darkly. “Eat. Shit.”

Thace stared Keith down, waited for the alpha to back down, but got his cool eyes looking back. Eyes appearing like black tar. Thace drew the gun back, flipped it so he cradled the barrel, and struck Keith’s across the face with the stock.

Surprisingly, the alpha absorbed the hit and panted harshly as blood dripped from the gash across his brow.

Thace cocked the gun, not liking Keith’s strong will and his unflinching gaze.

“No,” Zarkon commanded. “Someone might report that gunshot. The cops are already searching for us. Let them worry over a dying brother than a criminal.“

 Zarkon squatted beside Keith where he was pressing down on the bullet wound and coughing on pain. “You should’ve taken my offer. Let’s go, Thace. We have a rat to take care of.”

Keith dropped to his side, hearing Zarkon and Thace’s voices growing fainter and fainter as they ambled out the gangway.

“I have Sendak en route.”

“Good.”

Keith rolled to his back.

He didn’t take notice this afternoon but the sky was a cloudless, crystalline blue.

Blue.

Lance.

Fuck.

Thought rapidly of the omega’s face.

Thought of Lance’s crooked teeth and his breathtaking smile.

Heard his stupid voice. His idiotic jokes. The way he laughed at his own puns even when Keith didn’t.

Smelled sweet honey.

The white shore and blue ocean.

Rain.

Storms.

_I’m not fucking dying today._

_Fuck you. I’m not done._

Keith unclipped his radio, his hand working dumbly on the device.

He pressed down on the radio and lifted his head, each task required more and more of his energy. “Officer down. Gunshot wound. Send…someone,” he said; the words sounding like someone stuffed cotton balls in his ear. Distant and dull.

If there was a response to his message then he didn’t hear it.

“ _Keith?! What’s your location?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drinks coffee* guess it's a good thing all these chapters are already written, huh, no undetermined wait time for you guys.
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twitter: angry_latte
> 
> p.s. thanks to everyone here and tumblr for the feedback and support.


	9. Chapter Nine

Lance hopped in the car and pressed his forehead to the steering wheel. He felt sick suddenly. His vision blurred occasionally with darkness, and his abdomen screeched in pain whenever he tried to bend at the waist. His boss let him take a half a day.

_Probably something I ate. I’ll crash at Hunk’s and ask Shay to make me some tea._

As if his abrupt sickness wasn’t enough to throw off his day, Lotor started texting him and asked Lance for them to meet up and talk, sending him elaborate messages about after their time apart he saw how rash he reacted and where he was wrong in the equation. Politely, Lance told him he was a sack of shit. Lotor primly texted that Lance was being a child once again and ah the memories— Lotor’s favorite rebuttal to a lot of Lance’s antic was to call him immature so Lance weighed in on that title and sent him a finger emjoi.

The next couple of hours were quiet after.

Call him a kid once more and he might reconsider driving to Lotor’s place so he could egg his house like the kid he was.

His cell buzzed again.

This fucking guy.

Lance jerked it out of his pocket and answered it without reading the caller ID, “I said fuck—“

“Lance,” Allura’s voice unsettled him. It sounded odd, on the verge of something awful.

Was she having stressful day?

He probably did not lessen it by cursing out right at her mindlessly.

“Oh shit,” he said. “My bad, I thought you were…wait, are you crying? What happened?”

Allura cried softly, trying to contain the tears and speak through the horrible quiver in her voice, “It’s Keith,” she got out first. ”Lance. He’s been shot.”

 

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

_Keith’s been shot._

_Shot._

_He’s at McNeal’s Hospital._

_Hospital._

_We don’t know anything yet, Lance. They’re operating on him now._

_Operating._

_I just know the gunshot hit his stomach._

_Gunshot._

_It’s better if you just come here. Just drive carefully, please. I don’t want you in one of those rooms._

The conversation replayed again and again in his mind. A broken record. A shit song on the radio station, the one everyone adored but you loathed. Lance couldn’t shut it off.

He played the possible scenarios and they all ended poorly.

Keith dead.

Keith in the ground.

Keith’s own tombstone at the funeral grounds.

Keith gone, erased. Removed.

No more of his dry humor.

His unfunny retorts that he said in his deadpan voice.

His fiery but pleasant presence which did not fail to send his omega boiling.

His cruel but exquisite face which never betrayed any of his thoughts until you learned the near undetectable alterations to his eyes, lips, and brows.

Keith was just the guy Lance would’ve hated and admired privately in high school. Jealous of his coolness and the way people fawned at his handsome face. And coveting it for his own. A younger, stupider Lance would’ve found the slimmest of prods to get under Keith’s skin. Funny, because as an adult Lance felt the same but his agenda was different. The prods were for his smile, his blush, his attention. He wanted people jealous of him nabbing up a hot number like Keith.

Now he might not have that or anything of Keith

His omega whimpered like a kicked animal, worsening the sickening ball churning every awful emotion out there in his gut.

Fuck, that pain. It was Keith’s. He was feeling fucking Keith’s emotions and pain.

It was Keith’s. He was feeling fucking Keith’s emotions and pain.

He was feeling fucking Keith’s emotions and pain.

_You stupid shit._

_You bonded us._

_You stupid shits bonded without us knowing._

_This wasn’t how it went._

_You didn’t bond with Lotor without a debate, I had to coddle you; now you went and chose Keith without a heads up._

Omegas, what a real pain. Acted docile. Raced for the strongest branch on the tree. Governed by pheromones, scent, and squishy feelings and he should be livid with his omega for being a primal thing and letting judgment fly out the fuckin window but— he got it. Right then.

Keith was a lot more than his friend.

He was alpha.

He was Lance’s _alpha_.

Lance stepped on the gas and weaved in between lanes, thinking, assuring himself that if they were bonded and the pain resonating impressions in him were from Keith then he was still alive. Regardless of his medical status, on the table or off, Keith’s heart still beat.

 

_Hang in_

_There_

_Alpha_

_Your Omega_

_Is_

_Coming_

 

[x]

 

 

 

He didn’t get pulled over which was a blessing and a good sign, hopefully, because he broke the speed limit several times off and blew off a number of stop signs. Keith would have a fit, probably snap out _you do that while I’m on the clock and I’ll put you in a cell myself_.

Parking was a nightmare with people going in and out of the lot and first response ambulances wailing their sirens from the street to the ER admittance doors. He rushed by, ordering himself not to imagine Keith being wheeled out on a stretcher a mask strapped over his mouth, bandages sticky and wet with blood, the responding nurses and doctors shouting medical jargon as they took over and pulled him inside.

Lance cradled the side of his stomach as phantom pangs erupted on the spot.

Good.

You’re still kicking.

Bring the pain, man.

It subsided as he entered the glass doors and marched up to the front desk. The nurses were busy with paperwork, answering the never ceasing calls so they didn’t register Lance staring hard with impatience as he called out for help.

He made a fist and pounded it on the counter. The nurses jolted away. Families waiting in the chairs along the wall jumped, looking at him,  and wondered if he had any sense of respect for a hospital with mourning souls and wondrous outcomes.

A nurse in maroon scrubs shot up from her chair. Omega, a rogue by the judge of her jutting chin and fiery face. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to take yourself outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere. My alpha is in one of these rooms, give me the number. The name’s Keith Kogane. He’s a police officer. He got shot.”

The omega’s hard face softened and talked more civilly. “Look I understand you’re upset but I don’t need your attitude, sir. And this is certainly not the place to act like that.”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

The nurse directed a hand to the side, “Wait over there for a few minutes. Quietly or I will have you escorted out.”

Lance slumped into a chair, then remembered to text Allura that he was waiting on the main floor.

The omega hung up the receiver and gestured.

When Lance got to the front deck, she said, “Third floor. He’s in the OR right now so you’ll have to wait in the waiting room. There’s no fighting me on that.”

“I understand,” Lance said, then breathed. “Thank you.”

“Behave yourself.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Lance stepped out of the elevator and followed the signs on the wall, going in the direction they pointed. A somber ambiance saturated the room. Mint walls advertised physical wellness, reminders to check with their doctors regularly, and nondescript paintings.

Men in blue gathered in most of the seats. The rest stood in groups and talked privately.

Allura raced to him and threw her arms tightly around Lance and squeezed. Tears soaked his shirt where she pressed her face into it.

He hadn’t cried after the call, not during the drive, not after his dawning conclusion that he and Keith were bonded. Crying wasn’t his thing. Laughing, yea. Being a goof, definitely.

Crying was such an exposing gesture. So raw and guttural. He hated how puffy his eyes were whenever he cried, or how red lines veined his eyeball, or how his voice wobble pathetically. But it also symbolized the truth of the situation, the outcome, you cried when your loved one died. You cried when your heart was broken. You cried when your friend moved to another state.

It was like admitting to himself that Keith didn’t make it.

That he would have to see him dolled up in a coffin at his wake.

Allura pulled back, sniffling. “Sorry. I got it all over your clothes.”

Lance wiped under her eyes. “It’s fine. How’s Shiro?”

Allura palmed her pocket and pulled out a tissue and started to dab her face. Mascara ran black ink over her eyelids. Her lipstick required a second application. And her foundation grew thin and spotty under her eyes and mouth from her dragging tissues across it.

The redness made her blue eyes striking, displaying her sorrow viscerally. “He’s barely said a word. He won’t talk to anyone. And I know he’s trying to be strong for everyone but…”

It had to be hard. The way things were, Keith and Shiro were by themselves and the only family they had in the immediate area. Then a brother at that. Lance would be cationic too if any of his siblings were in there.

“Guys don’t like to cry,” Lance said.

“C’mon.”

“Unless you’re Hunk,” he joked.

Allura puffed a rickety laugh, vocals shredded to pieces from an awful cryfest. “Don’t make me laugh. This isn’t the time.”

“No but it’s my job to make sad situations a little less sad.”

“Are you okay?” She asked with an expression that asked for none of his bullshit, none of the levity he applied to all situation, no armor of humor he used to shield himself. “I know you and Keith were- are close.”

“Honestly? I wanna throw somethin’. I got snappy with the nurses and if you keep slobbering all over me I might cry.”

“Lance,” she worked her fingers in circles over her forehead. “Look you like to act shit doesn’t get to you but it does.”

The weight of everything eclipsed him. Surrounded him on all sides, crushing him with anger, hurt, fear, and anxiety. He felt pressure behind his eyes and blinked until it ceased.

 “I’m…not ok.” Lance closed a hand over his mouth, the need to say more but fearing if he did everything inside would break. “I…I think we b-boned. And…now…he’s fuckin’ in there and I can’t do a thing. And I have to do somthin’… he can’t not make it through.”

“I thought you guys were still…”

“Not admitting shit, yea. I started to get a lot of pains this afternoon around my stomach.”

“Even if you guys bonded without you knowing…you shouldn’t be feeling this until way later.”

“I know. It’s not important right now. I’m gonna check on Shiro. Doubt I can help much but he’s family.”

“He’ll appreciate you being here for him and Keith,” she sniffed, then regained her elegant composure.  Eyes a glacial shade of blue. Face dark brown and mature. Big sister alpha who Lance counted on since he was a kid.  

Allura balled up the tissue in her fist, watching dully as it crumpled between her fingers. She looked up, tried a smile, and said. “I’m gonna go get some water and clean up. Probably look like a mess.”

“You do. It’s kinda gross.”

“I love you,” she blurted, eyes honest and incredibly expressive. She lessened the emotional impact by saying, “Even though you annoy me all the time.”

 Lance didn’t deal in sincere expressions or confessions, it stripped him humanly bare like he had no skin and was a walking science class experiment; shit like that positioned you on the front lines where the bullets found their targets with a horrifying accuracy, where everyone around you had their face in the ground dead.

Fine, he was being over the top about it.

It was okay to be the underside of a turtle, the delicate parts. It didn’t make him any less. It didn’t make his fears any greater.

 Lance put an arm around her, Allura folding in easily, and pinched her cheek. “And I’ll continue to do that for years now stop getting emotional on me. Go before Shiro sees you without makeup.”

She smacked his chest, “Shut up. I look good with or without it.”

She walked down the hall.

Lance patted Shiro on the back from where he hunched in a chair and stared numbly at the cream carpet. Shiro reacted with a delay as though his mind was in the OR.

He blinked. The white fluorescent lights colored his skin a ghostly pale. Stress was written under his eyes and forehead. One of the rare times Shiro looked anything less than handsome and unbreakable.

“Hey Shiro.”

“Lance,” Shiro got up and hugged him. “Thanks for coming.”

Lance clapped his shoulder and pointed to the blues coming in packs. “You have the whole department here.”

Shiro seemed to remember the other officers, face glowing at the number of faces here in support for them both. “Yea. Keith’s a good guy.”

Yea, Keith was real good.

An alpha that offered him a bed, a shower, and a hot meal when Lance felt so low and impossibly glass like. Turned Lance down when he could’ve gotten a great lay and let Lance dish out every word that flew through his mind. The same guy who played cops and robbers with his little cousins. Who took Lance to McDonald's in the pouring rain just cause he asked. Was game for anything he suggested. Listened to his rants. Laughed at all his terrible jokes.

Lance cleared his throat, stuffing his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “He is.” He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it and hedged cautiously, “How long has he been…?”

“Few hours,” Shiro reported, curt like he didn’t want Lance to finish his question. As though mentioning it herald bad intent. “I wasn’t there when it happened. Just got the call.”

“Oh.” Lance didn’t want to press Shiro for more. Guy was off and so far gone from the alpha he saw regularly content and at peace by his sister’s side.

“I asked him to be careful and…and this happened. I feel like I jinxed it by saying it.”

“You guys are cops. Stuff like this happens right? I mean you can’t blame yourself for something like this.”

“It’s different when it’s your brother.”

Someone tapped Lance on the shoulder. Another cop. Short. Petite. Rusty hair. And alpha. Blood soaked her shirt completely through. Smears of it streaked her cheeks, unconscious of their cakey redness.

“Pidge,” she said when Lance looked at her silently. “We kinda met at the party. I’m Keith’s partner.”

“Oh shit. Sorry…”

“Yea, yea. You don’t remember cause you were all gone on my friend, don’t worry.”

“Can I ask what happened or is that something you guys can’t say?”

Shiro crossed his arms, averting his eyes.

“The case itself, no. Ongoing for now,” Pidge answered. Lance expected that much though, Keith spoke briefly about cases whenever they were hanging out.

She put her hands on the boney jut of her hips. “But the short answer is Keith went solo after a perp. He took his protective vest off before pursuing. How and who shot him we don’t know, he was out of it when we got to him.”

“That’s good, right?” He asked, searching both their faces for a glimmer of hope.

Keith was pulling through now but what about an hour from now? Or days from the operation? A number of things could hinder his chances of recovery.

“The bullet went through his stomach. I won’t lie to you. I know you two are close but cases like these go either way. I know guys who walked away fine and others that didn’t. But if there’s one asshole who could get shot and walk into the office the day after then its Keith.”

Shiro laughed, small and soft, and it sounded ancient like he deprived himself the luxury of the gesture for centuries.

Lance smiled, “Sounds like him.”

   

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Allura shook him, “Hey.”

“Keith?” Lance asked, hopeful.

The alpha frowned. “Not anything yet. Sorry.”

Lance turned over in the love seat, mouth parched, body aching from the crappy cushions and the poor excuse of a blanket his army jacket made. The crowd in the room dwindled.  Cops came and left. Shiro got several calls that he took into the hall. Pidge and Matt cleaned up at home and wore comfy clothes.

“What time is it?” He asked as he sat up and planted his feet on the floor. The carpet was stiff beneath his socks.

“Ten something. I got food for everyone.”

He looked at the paper bag Allura set down, “Not hungry.”

“Are you still getting pain?”

“Yea.”

Allura opened the bag, the paper wrinkling loudly, and pulled out a burger. “Then Keith’s okay. Eat. You gotta be strong for him now.”

Lance unwrapped the burger, not feeling any hunger, but he felt tapped out. On empty. Like someone leeched off his strength and stamina. “I never got like this with Lotor. If he was sick then I felt it but it wasn’t like this”

“Neither did I until Shiro.”

Lance bit into his burger and tasted nothing. “Now I’m kinda worried.”

Allura picked up Lance’s jacket as it toppled to the floor, folded it, and laid it over the back of the loveseat. She curled her legs under her body and snuggled into the crook of the couch. “It’s only this bad during times like this.”

“What kind of hocus pocus shit is this then?”

She shrugged. “Dunno but strong bonds kinda act more like a feeder. You’re not just feeling each other. You borrow from them, they from you.”

“Oh. Great. Like a parasite.”

“You’re the one flirting with the parasite, jackass.”

“I didn’t say he was an ugly parasite.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

It was a quarter after midnight when a doctor walked into the room with a purpose. She read off a clipboard, “Are you family of Keith Kogane?”

They all jumped out of their seats.

“Yes. I’m his brother, Shiro.”

The doctor tucked the board under her armpit and lowered her hands into the deep pockets of her lab coat. “Well, you all can breathe easy now. Keith pulled through the operation.”

The relief…man. Hearing those words.

The world didn’t have the proper terms to fully articulate the wash of calm racing through his veins, the sheer happiness lifting him to cloud nine, the tears welling in his eyes.

Shiro instinctively grabbed Allura’s hand. “Thank you so much.”

“Luckily Keith’s a very strong alpha and none of his vital organs were punctuated. I know we doctors say this often but if that bullet was centimeter closer to the right, he wouldn’t have survived. Strong alpha or not.”

Shit.

A fucking centimeter difference could’ve made this day a hell for all of them.

“We’re going to move him to his own room in a few minutes. You’ll be able to see him then. He will be out from the surgery though so don’t expect much of a conversation from him.”

Pidge laughed, “He didn’t give much of one without a bullet going through him.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

A nurse led them down the white halls. Cheap title on the floor, the type with reflective flecks in the squares. Each door had a small panel of glass to peek into and a shelf nailed to the wall next to it with files. Urgency didn’t pitch people’s voices. Didn’t paint the walls. Humming lights bleached the color out of everything. There were fewer people now during the graveyard shift so their footfalls resonated.

The nurse stopped at room 22B and turned the knob and let the door swing so they could step in. She hung back, “I’m assuming you guys are staying overnight. We have blankets in the cabinet there. Try to keep it down, this floor is mostly patients recovering.”

The group nodded but Lance didn’t glance at her, didn’t process the word cause Keith was in the bed. Packaged in bandages, blood, and bruises and it connected for him. The event to Keith. Concrete facts. Harsh visuals. Keith was all sharp metal in a junkyard. The broken scraps no one wanted.

In that bed with the machine beeping, the sheets a sickly pale blue, and the pillows designed to swallow people and make them fragile things— Keith wasn’t the metal in the yard. Plastic, maybe. Glass, definitely.

Either way, he looked so…breakable.

Fucked up.

Seeing him in such a weakened state.

He didn’t think alphas like Keith could get hurt this bad— a foolish thought— but Keith never allowed him the chance to entertain him as anything less than a strong alpha. Duct taped and damaged goods Keith still managed to look finer than a devil in a suit, typical of Lance to notice that but hey some people couldn’t wear the property damage well on their body. Like downgrading the marble counters to granite, bad for the house’s value. Profits went down. In his usual fashion, Keith made it his bitch. Wiped scars, bullet wounds, and broken bones on his ass and flushed it

Stitches ran across one of his brows, the skin around the black thread achingly red and swollen. Explained the pangs drilling his head, Lance thought as he touched his brow.

_You were telling me the whole time._

_Where you hurt and how bad._

Shiro shuffled and dropped at Keith’s side, sought his limp hand, and closed his over Keith’s and touched it to his forehead. Allura combed Shiro’s hair soothingly. Pidge tried to wipe her eyes nonchalantly.

Lance wanted to move. Wanted a whole lot to be honest and exposed with Keith and not all of them were good or acceptable to do in front of a crowd; mostly he feared getting his ass next to Keith would put him in the same shape as Shiro. Wrecked. Sniveling quietly like a child in their bedroom. His omega, of course, wholly disagreed and was keeping Lance aware of that by whining and throwing his body against his skin.

_Chill._

_I’m here._

_We’re here_

_Alpha’s fine_

 

[x]

 

 

 

A movement in the sheets made Lance fly out of the poor sleep he was managing in a stuffy chair which he dragged from the side of the room to Keith’s bed. The world filed in blurry and unbalanced at first until he blinked past the fuzzy film.  Keith shifted under the sheets, rolling his head side to side as he took in his surrounding and tried to piece back the last twenty-four hours.

Lance rasped, “Hey,” as Keith looked down.

“Lance?”

“Unless you think I’m an angel.”

Keith coughed, wincing. “Shut…up.” Talking seemed to require a heavy toll from him so he spoke with a husky and slow cadence.

“The docs patched you up. Bullet didn’t hit anything vital.”

“Feels. Like. It.”

Lance found the alpha’s hand and looped his shaky fingers through his limp ones. The alpha’s fingers closed loosely on his, weak. He looked down at Keith’s hands and remembered it pulling him from the alley and into his home. Remembered the times Keith misplaced it on his back or through his hair. Remembered it when he grabbed it impulsively at the park. The strength in him. The fire and warmth in his skin.

The omega looked there, filled with the memories and how each little moment tied him and his omega to Keith like a raft inbound for a lighthouse because the sky had darkened, the stars faded, the moon consumed by black clouds. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole, Keith. You gotta think…I–we want you home. Don’t fuckin’ act like Batman or some shit. None of this is a game or a movie. You don’t get to come back from the dead.”

Keith exhaled, Lance could hear the awful dryness in his lungs, the pain instilling in every fiber. “Look. At me.”

He shook his head. The tears would come.

Fuck you, Keith.

Nope.

No.

He wouldn’t let Keith see him cry again.

“Lance. Don’t be. A dick.”

Actually being a dick was benefitting him greatly so nah, pal. “No.”

“Why?”

“Just cause, ” he lied, figuring if Keith was sluggish physically then his mind must be as well so the brittle nature of his voice should fly under this cop radar along with the growing visible shiver making his shoulders wobble.

“Gotta,” Keith breathed.  “Tell you some…something important.”

“And I have to look for that?”

“It helps.”

Like Keith was shot and all so it was cruel to deny him such a small request. He lifted his head and fixed his gaze to the spot on the pillow not cushioning Keith’s head. “Okay.”

“At me.”

Cops, right?

Making the demands, asking the questions, having your ass sit on the curb or against the wall while they pat you down. Keith’s eyes looked tired. Guess a bullet and liters of you spilling out would do that to you.

“So what’s so important that you gotta hassle me like this?”

Keith’s fingers developed some dexterity and his thumb caressed circles on his skin. A real Hallmarks moment. Romantic ambiance. The soft, angelic beams of lighting spilling in through the blinds. The world on the other side of the room muted and surgically removed.

Then the monitor spiked.

Lance looked.

Keith’s heart was racing.

A nurse burst in, alerted to the machine’s reading, then froze in the doorway because Keith was fine. Maybe redder than usual but okay.

She seemed to get it faster than Lance and backed up, “I’ll let you two have your…I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake.”

“What happened?”

“Dumbass monitor,” Keith seethed, firing a sour look to the machine as though the expression might scare it and make it unplug itself.

“Yea, dude. I’ve watched Greys Anatomy. Are you feeling okay?”

“Stop asking questions.”

“Excuse me.”

Keith hushed him.

“Are you really telling me to shut up, do you want me to extend your hospital stay cause I will?”

“I’m trying to think about…Look I was shot yesterday.”

“Hence you being here.”

“Shut up. The point is…almost dying made me see shit differently.” An impression flowered in Lance’s gut, a nauseous inducing one, the one with butterflies and wasps moving madly in search for a route out— trepidation. Hope. Excitement. Doubt. Jitters.

_You poor alpha. Can’t say the words cause you think shit isn’t mutual._

_Boy, it’s been mutual since day one._

A good omega, a good soon to be boyfriend would throw out a lifeline and help a guy out but there was a deprived sense of pleasure he got with the knowledge that Keith was fumbling to get out a few words on his account. A few attempts bred and died on Keith’s lips. His heart started working double time.

“Keith,” Lance grinned, thinking Keith suffered plenty and his brain shouldn’t be clocking in OT after the day he had. Plus confused and awkward Keith was unjustly cute like a little dog who fetched a large stick but couldn’t pin down the reason why the stick wouldn’t fit through the back door.

The alpha sighed, “Yea?”

“I like you too, stupid. Oh and we’re already bonded by the way. So we might as well be official already.”

“Wait. What? B-but your ex—“

“What about him? I never planned to get back with him. Dude you’re a cop, I thought you’d figure it out with me flirting all the time.”

“I thought that was your thing.”

“Actually my thing is to act like a huge doofus and make people laugh.  Did you think I was messing around?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dude I danced with you. I ate phallic objects in front of you. I held your hand. I let you win that game of Operation.”

“You’re full of it. You lost.”

“If you wanna believe that…Seriously I was extra gay with you. I sat in your lap.”

“There wasn’t any room in the car,” Keith rationalized.

“Shay could’ve sat on Hunk’s lap.”

“Oh yea…Wow. You’re a little shit.”

“Like you didn’t wear muscle shirts around me so I would pop a woody,” Lance accused.

Keith looked away, guilty. “I would never.”

“And you ate my chicken nugget. Do you know I can’t get a ten piece without thinking about your mouth?”

“You offered it.”

“True but you didn’t have to deep throat it, man.”

“I didn’t deep throat a chicken…You’re a god damn idiot.”

“And your alpha bonded with this idiot.”

“Maybe cause he’s stupid too. Wait, isn’t bonding something we have to verbally agree to? I don’t get how that happened.” His sincerity made Lance’s innards as amendable as clay.

Little virgin Keith.

Had a nice ring to it, yea?

Lance tipped his head and hummed with the thought running _what am I gonna do with you_. “I forgot you’re new to this. But usually yea. Sometimes the other half can decide on their own and do it.”

“Is that good?”

“I think it’s supposed to be. With my ex it took a while and when we bonded it was like hearing someone talk through a wall. You, it’s like you’re on surround sound.”

“I think I feel you… You’re happy, right? I feel really warm.”

“Yea, baby. I’m happy.”

“This is going to make us so much gayer.”

“Can you feel anything else?” Lance concentrated hard on a thought. The breathless need to be as close as possible to Keith. To be in his arms. To hear his alpha heart tick-tock. To lather himself in his black leather scent.

Keith’s face furrowed as he sought the impression and read the message. “You want to be here.”

“Close.”

“On the bed?”

“If there’s room for me, then yea.”

Keith lifted the cover, “This bed seats two, pal.”

Lance kicked off his shoes, unpeeled his jacket, and burrowed in tenderly so he didn’t accidentally jostle Keith and make his injuries ache. Keith threw the covers back and pulled Lance in. Lance rested his head over Keith’s chest and listened to his heart.

An indescribable peace filled him. Like a fire illuminated inside the jagged stone walls of a cave, the walls dancing with formless shadows. Keith was his little bonfire on the beach, the torch in a dense moonless night through the woods.

It was comfy here. Safe. Protected.  A walled fortress. Front Knox. The Pentagon. The military force guarding the secrets of Area 51. A team tougher and stronger than the Avengers and the Justice League put together.

A place with the stars.

Lance was the pilot of his own space ship. Han Solo with his light speed jumping Millennium Falcon.

Keith was taking him through the cosmos, looking at a thousand sunsets from the surface of a thousand different planets, and none of it made sense.

He had never been this content.

This full, like water continuously brimming over the rim of a cup.

This settled, like an achor heaved overboard to the bottom of the ocean as it tethered the ship still.

The good times with his ex were well, good, but they scarcely grazed this level

It was wonderful but terrifying, losing Keith would be an enormous scrap of shrapnel through his gut, not the superficial pain he got leaving his ex. Lance didn’t dwell long on the thought. A worry for another time, maybe. Hopefully, that time won’t arrive ever but life was not a mistress for people to play with.

Keith said as Lance’s emotions crashed into him without mercy or warning, “Wow. Dude.” He tried to sound casual but the awe was in his voice, the happiness he got from knowing and feeling Lance’s legit emotion minus the jokes and the humor he utilized as a shield.

“Don’t make it gay,” Lance said with his eyes closed.

“You’re the one,” he argued, laughing lowly. Then with the laughter gone from his voice, he said. “I’m sorry. For making you worry.”

Lance pressed his head harder like the right pressure would open Keith’s chest and let him hide in there. “Good. I don’t wanna go through that again. Dick.”

“I thought about you,” Keith started. “While I bled and shit. I wanted to see you one more time.”

“You’re gonna see my ass so often you’ll get sick of me.”

“I mean you can try and all but,” he joked.

 

_I get this again._

_I get to hear you trying to be funny, which you suck at dude, but I love how bad you are._

_I get you._

“Shut up seriously. I’ll cry.”

“Okay. We’ll just sleep.”

“Everyone’s gonna see us,” Lance mumbled, turning his head to look up at Keith. “Shiro and them. They went for food a while ago.”

“Then we won’t have to explain anything. Good. I’m too tired anyway.” 

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Allura drank from her coffee, purchased at an actual place where the shit tasted good and juiced you up, unlike the cheap non-name sludge they pushed at the hospital. Shiro was in higher spirits. He objected to leaving in the morning and wanted to be there the second Keith woke up. Allura went alpha on him a tiny bit and lectured him that his own health was important, not just Keith’s. She felt bad about it but knew it was the right move and Shiro seemed the better for it.

Besides Lance was still there so if Keith did wake up, he wouldn’t be alone.

Pidge lifted the lid on the case and stole a donut as they walked down the hall.

Matt carried the cup holder and rolled his eyes at his sister’s toddler short patience. “You can’t wait?”

Pidge closed the lid and nibbled on her prize, making borderline pornographic moans of bliss. “Matt, these came right out of the oven. It’s chocolatey, fluffy goodness.”

“Just leave something for Lance and Keith,” Shiro said, smiling as Pidge moaned louder to annoy Matt. He had a cup of coffee in one hand, still too hot to drink, and Allura’s in the other.

“She’s as bad as Lance,” Allura complained.

“I always found Lance more funny than annoying.”

“Yea cause you didn’t grow up with him.”

“I mean…” Shiro thought better for the sentence to hang unfinished than to finish it when Allura glared. “Oh never mind,” he whistled, avoiding Allura’s steely eyes.

“What, what were you going to say?”

“Look at that we’re here. Better check on Keith,” Shiro declared, dropping Allura’s hand and turning the handle.

“I got my eye on you, Shiro,” Allura threatened.

“I hope so. I’m very attractive. Wouldn’t want you to miss out,” he said.

Pidge bitched from the rear, “Foreplay is not for the hospital people. Only TV dramas and horror movies are.”

Shiro turned, going to walk in, but stopped completely and decided to slam the door. One of the nurses' speed walking glared at him in reprimand.

“What’s wrong with you?” Allura hissed after the nurse properly scolded Shiro.

“Keith and Lance. They’re um…”

Pidge smiled evilly. “Are they fuckin? Oh my god, please tell me yes. I want to walk in.”

Matt stared at his sister in undisguised horror, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I said I wanted to walk in. Not join.”

Shiro gaped, then said simply.  “No they’re cuddling.”

“Wow. I think it would’ve been a better move to fuck.”

“Keith was shot. There’s no way he could…why are we arguing about this? Be quiet, Pidge.”

“We’re off duty right now. You’re not the boss of me.”

Allura looked in for herself, then shut the door with some level of control. “Oh my god. They’re a fuckin cliché. They hooked up in a hospital after a dramatic event. This is some serious Grey’s Anatomy shit. Like Degrassi bad.”

“Well at least they can stop with the whole ‘we like each other but won’t admit’ thing,” Shiro commented.

“Are we really gonna stand outside? Cause they’re having a Disney moment.”

“Just for a little bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mission accomplished, klance is a green to go. you know what's next, right, gooey fluff and smut.
> 
> and the writing for GL is finished so don't fear this fic going incomplete. all the work is done so the updates will be every Wednesday.
> 
> as per tradition, I'm working on a new project for VLD. two actually, one is klance and the other shklance. 
> 
> thanks again for the support and feedback everyone!
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drags hands down face* my god ao3 did not want me posting this chapter. ugh, the page froze on me.
> 
> early post b/c i have work tomorrow.

Doc gave Keith the cardinal rules. Bed rests. No strenuous activities, including sex which the doctor directed with a knowing glance. Unable to unhelp himself Lance cracked a joke about hot post-OP sex, the doctor took him seriously and made the omega swear to not engage in sexual intercourse. Keith stared at the ceiling as he thought  _this is my omega, this is the guy I’m bonded to, he’s a damn fool_. He was to have bi-weekly checks up with his primary doctor, if the wound at any point got infected he was to return immediately. When he was to return to duty they wanted him on desk duty which Keith started a lineup of excuses to use on Coran the day he stepped back into the precinct.

Two weeks later of bed rest, routine visits from friends and family, and prodding from nurses; Keith was wheeled out with a prescription for pain meds and a weight extracted from his chest.

Lance sped him through the lot, making cartoonish sound effects.

The nurses saw this through the glass doors and hastily put an end to their antics.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

“So the Paladin?” Keith asked during a moment of privacy when they stopped off to get Keith’s pain meds. Lance and Allura waited in line at the pharmacy while Shiro walked Keith patiently into the store.

By the dip of Shiro’s eyes Keith knew it was a bust. “He got away. My C.I. isn't answering my calls," he said. "The White Paladin probably moved back to Mexico, he has good relations with the Altean cartel. Z's probably overseas.”

“Shit,” Keith cursed.

His side throbbed. He thought of how close he got to dismantling one of the prime alpha gangs, Zarkon was there in plain sight and Keith’s negligence cost. The streets would be unsafe. The victims made in effect from the violence between alpha gangs would still mourn and the new ones created would yearn for Zarkon’s and Paladin’s arrest.

Truthfully holing up Zarkon and Paladin didn’t put a stop to gangs, another would gladly fill their position, but it would shake up their hierarchy. Pit alphas against alphas. Make the bust easier because they would work against each other, not as a group.

“We’re done at least for now. Another chance will come and we’ll be ready.”

“I had Zarkon,” he said, the day playing in his mind, all the moves he could’ve made, the errors that were glaringly obvious to see in hindsight, the burning pain of the bullet tearing through his flesh. “I didn’t think to check my six and Thace got the drop on me. Musta seen me go after Zarkon during the shootout and trailed me.”

“Good thing he’s a terrible shot.”

“Zarkon wanted to buy my loyalty.”

Shiro laughed hard, “Wow. He picked the wrong cop to try that shit on.”

"I told him to eat shit."

"Atta boy." Shiro patted his back. "Good news though, we secured fifty kilos of coke and twenty or so bangers. Maybe it wasn't the big fish but it's something."

“So the case is closed for now?

“Don't worry about that. Your job is getting back into fighting shape so leave the badge alone until it’s time.”

“Fine.”

Shiro clapped down his shoulder, “You’ll be busy anyway.”

“What do you…?”

Shiro wiggled his eyebrows and made a lecherous face. “Once Allura and I decided to be an item, the sex was…”

Keith shielded his ears, seeing as he couldn’t really run away in his condition. “Shiro. No.”

“I wasn’t going to give you details. Just that I was sore.”

“Ew.”

“That’s why I didn’t take your calls.”

“I’m really mad that bullet didn’t kill me now.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

“So you’re staying?” Keith asked when Allura and Shiro walked out of his place minus a mouthy omega.

Lance crinkled through the plastic bag on the counter and unearthed a gradually melting carton of ice cream. “Dude I bought ice cream for us. We are definitely hanging out on the couch and watching TV. Unless you wanna sleep it off then I can chill by myself.”

Keith hobbled over and read the label, “Did you buy the one with the chunks?”

“Baby, you know I got it thick for you.”

“If you’re trying to give me blue balls, it’s working.”

“Who said I wouldn’t let you get any?”

“The doctor.”

“Well, he said no sex. Didn’t say shit about oral or handys.”

Keith was hard in a second. A second.  Taking a nose dive off a sheer cliff into arousal. Read heat washed his skin. Filled his head with a dense fog. Maybe it had been too long since he had someone, he rationalized, then looked at Lance with his whiskey brown skin and gem blue eyes and realized it wasn’t time. It was all him. All that pretty omega, broadcasting his warmth, his scent, his naked desire for Keith.

Lance fixed one of his Hollywood-worthy smiles, confident and full of pride. “That didn’t take much.”

“I can put this dick away, omega,” he lied.

Lance pressed Keith into the wall, started with his hand on his chest and moved it up to his jaw and maneuvered it how he liked.

 “Not to sound like a cliché but you owe me. Kisses, dates, the whole nine yards. I’m calling in that debit, Keith. You’ve earned quite the interest,” he said, voice the splendid ratio of husky and slutty, dominate and submissive, masculine and delicate.

Bad rogues. Little grenades of sex and power.

He found his alpha buckling easily, allowing Lance to exert the threads of alpha on him. Keith rested his head on the wall. “Then I better start paying, huh?”

“Oh yea. I’ll let you off easy today.”

“I don’t want easy,” Keith growled.

“Trust me when I say this, if you let me get at that dick then I’m riding you back into the OR.”

Again, not helping. Like ever.

“I’ll go back to the hospital.”

“Shut up, dork,” Lance laughed. Then moved his hand into Keith’s hair and made a fist. He pulled Keith near with that grip and pressed their mouths together. Chaste.  Toe curling sweet. Tender like they were made of glass and porcelain. An economy of gentleness that could only be spoken through touch alone, could be interpreted from sensations. Like he wanted to make the first one magical and special like the movies. As though Lance ached for this as long and as feverishly as Keith had.

Keith cupped Lance’s jaw. Put his other hand on the omega’s waist as the reality sunk in.

_I can do this._

_I can kiss you._

_I can hold you._

Lance pulled their lips apart, breathing heavily. “I seriously want you.”

“Then why’d you stop?”

“Because I’m going to try to grab your dick if we keep kissing and doc said no sex.”

His mouth felt tingly as he said. “We should do something non-sexual then.”

“Like what?” Lance asked and then started to move against Keith in the most sexual way imaginable, like a cat in heat.

Keith tried to think past his hard on. “Dunno. Disney channel. Monopoly. And don’t go saying you’re the king—”

Lance cut him off, pausing his pornographic grinding, and grinned so widely that laugh lines formed on his face. “Keith, did you know I’m the king of Monopoly?”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance counted out loud as he moved his piece down the board, he landed one of Keith’s properties and cursed. “Fuck.”

Keith spooned ice cream into his mouth, “Ah Lance. Nice of you to stop by.”

“I fucking hate you. This is stupid. This is rigid,” Lance grumbled as he leafed through his colored bills and started counting hundreds. “One, two...”

“I bought a house so it’s double this time,” Keith added when Lance made to put his dwindling finances away.

Lance did the math in his head then checked his balance. “I don’t have enough money to pay double.”

“Then you better sell me one of your properties. Or you can forfeit. Up to you.”

Lance looked down at the board, at his properties, his meager bank account and threw the money down and pushed back his chair. Keith watched him storm over and dropped between his legs.

“Lance.” Keith’s spoon clattered to the floor when the omega grabbed his knees and spread his legs wide. Lance worked his hands up his inner thigh, scent growing sweeter and sweeter with arousal. He palmed Keith’s cock, moaning without any ounce of shame. Keith could smell— could feel— Lance getting hard. Getting wet between his legs. Felt how hot he got just rubbing Keith through his jeans.

“I thought we were playing.”

“We are. I’m paying you double.” Lance husked.

“So you think you can just suck me off without paying?”

 He shifted on his knees and kissed Keith, and said against his mouth, “Yea. Bet you’re going to ask for seconds too.”

“Now you’re just cocky.”

“I think that’s you,” Lance purred, hand on his dick like a pervert as he handled him lewd and cruel, as though Keith was the omega’s toy here. “Thick too, it’s hot as fuck. Might choke on this monster.”

The alpha groaned, each word of filth igniting his skin, taking him higher, making his harder. His cock felt too confined, too swollen, in his jeans. “Damn.”

Lance groped him. Moved his hand up and down. Tested Keith’s thickness. Keith thrashed his head side to side as he drowned in pleasure and moaned. Lance had to grab his chin so he could slip his tongue inside his mouth. He cared little for mastery or elegance and licked like a parched mutt.

“You can fuck my mouth,” Lance sucked on his lower lip, snatched it between his teeth then tugged. Keith’s lip popped back red with Lance’s dentals imprinted on it. The omega slipped his tongue back in, Keith managed a single breath before he melted to his cruel tongue.

Lance backed up. “Or pull my hair. I like it.”

His arousal was a tangible thing now, weighing in on every limb, blinding Keith to common sense and decorum, heat pulsed in his veins. “Lance. C’mon. This is not fair.”

“Believe me, I know. I’m already wet as fuck,” Lance moaned directly into his ear.

Keith  _shivered_ , oh man did this fucking guy feel it hot and fast to his cock like a wet touch. “F-fuck.”

“Want my mouth on you so bad, baby. Got no idea.”

“Shit. Suck me, Lance. Put your mouth on me.”

“Well since you asked so nicely.” Lance dipped down. Slow. Exotic. Artful.  Dripping sin from his pores.  A creature of ink freely chasing the white on a blank page. Body handmade and designed to drive people wild, especially alphas.

Keith watched him through bleary eyes, enchanted by his fluid move from standing to kneeling on his knees, his obscenely casual skill in palming Keith’s cock like he had the cheat sheet on his sweet spots written on the back of his hand, and his effortless ability to make the most mundane gestures exotic like when he popped Keith’s fly. The thought started an ache in his cock, the anticipation of Lance’s wet mouth on him, his head between his legs as he bobbed up and down his cock like a lollipop. His alpha chanted—

 

_Baby, baby_

_Suck me, suck me_

_Need your mouth_

_Need you there_

_Omega_

 

Lance unzipped him with cocky grin, absolutely smitten with Keith’s…enthusiastic response, “Thirsty.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” he teased.

“No problem, just put your head between my legs,” he fondled himself crudely in demonstration.

Lance dipped a finger beneath the band of his boxer briefs, touching the black curls above his cock, then slipped his hand entirely inside; Keith groaned. The touch seemed to sate him and invoke a deeper hunger. He had a violent, one red and tar black, need to open Lance where he was slick and white hot and pound his cock until neither could summon their breath.

Maybe this alpha-omega bonding shit was legit because as soon as the image formed in his head, him buried deep and tight in Lance, the omega tipped his chin up and fired a sleazy smile. He slipped his cock out the flap on his underwear and started pumping him again.

Keith’s mind experienced a nuclear meltdown from the dry, hot contact of skin on skin, the graphic sound of his foreskin as it rolled over the head of his cock then rolled back up. It sounded so wet. So dirty just getting his dick tugged.

Thought loudly,  _damn, this can’t getting any better, any hotter_ , and then Lance pressed his cotton candy soft lips to his cock and— well it got  _way_ better. Also, that whine he made right there; the furthest he ever sounded of an alpha. None of that guttural, gritty texture that laced his voice.

Nah.

Naturally, Lance  _ate that shit up_. Keith felt it as he rolled back his foreskin and moved his lips over the pink head, cocked in a slutty smirk.  Coaxed out more by letting Keith see his tongue slide out his mouth before running the tip in teasing circles.

Keith hissed. Watched, in a state of hypnosis, Lance lick his cock messily.  Sucked on his lower lip. “Lance. Suck me. C’mon, put me in your mouth.”

“See. Told ya that you’d beg for it.”

“God. Stop being a dick for once and suck an actual dick.”

“This is more fun, see?”  Lance straightened him and dragged the flat of his tongue from the base to the head.

Keith’s eyes closed, not seeing Lance’s point of argument but in fact seeing stars in the darkness of his eyelids. Opened them up because Lance was back at it with his nasty tricks and red tongue. Put it all over. Made a gross mess on the shaft when he let his saliva dribbled excessively down it.

Stroke Keith next in long pumps, his hand gliding smoothly. Keith humped slowly faintly recalling that oh, yea,  _I got just a bullet extracted a week ago and the doc warned me against this;_ so his hips lifted in a controlled manner. But the thing about getting it on was you wanted more, ached for more, and your body started to recognize the urgency of your needs and responded in care. Explicit. Fast. Dirty. The grind slithered into a maniac rocking of the hips.

When he got Keith like this, hot and hard and to the point that his injuries be damned, he wanted to lose himself in Lance’s fist and cum until he couldn’t move, Lance thought  _now_  was an excellent time to introduce his mouth.

Keith stuttered and gripped the chair. “F-fuck. God, yes. Fuck like that, Lance.”

And no person had any right— not a damn one— looking that smug, that greedy, that power hungry with a cock in their mouth. Except for Lance, it seemed, cause he did. Then attempted to laugh around Keith’s cock were it not for the alpha’s hand at the base of his skull and directing Lance deeper.

The laughter petered over to a moan. He liked it. Wanted it as he boasted. And was slicking at the weight of Keith’s hand.

Keith twined his fingers through his hair, the hold soft at first, then jerked Lance off with a roughness aimed to sting but not harm.

Lance looked up, confused and horny, Keith ended that by grabbing his cock at the base with his other hand and feeding it to Lance. Felt hazy watching each inch of him being devoured. Slicking in and out of that wetness.

The pleasure was incredible. Had him  _dizzy_ with it. Had Keith pinned down, checked mate.

The visual alone— pretty Lance on his fucking knees while at worship, his hand and body law and order— there wasn’t a drug on the market which could inspire this same kind of high, this many endorphins lighting up in his brain, this deft of a scalpel slicing his body and mind from reality.

Coke. Dope. LSD. Acid. Kush. Ecstasy.  The ABC’s of the DEA; they needed a formal education.

But it was better like this. His private stash. His spaceship to Mercury’s sweltering, cratered surface. His little slice of Eden.

Keith cocked his head to the side. Saw Lance swallow him deep and wet. Then saw him lick his way up,  cock wetter with each ascension. All kinds of filth made tracks in his mind, a reckless babble of shit Keith heard in bad pornos that he’d cringe at in any other situation but now, they’re a wet tongue.

“You like that, Lance? Sucking dick. Fuckin’ good at it.”

Lance whimpered and bobbed faster.

“Wanna have you choke one day. Think you’d like that?”

Lance popped off wetly, drove up from his shin, and clapped Keith’s jaw in a strong hold and jammed his tongue in. Keith tasted Lance. Tasted cock. Tasted the endless ways Lance was going to destroy him. And moaned whorishly.

The omega drew back, licking Keith’s saliva off his lips. “Can you finger me after?”

Now Keith was good with dirty talk, came with the package as an alpha cop. Plenty of alphas required more motivation than a gun and a badge because alphas were well endowed with stubbornness. Brute force did so much. A talk placed alphas on the bottom shelf, plus it made the difference from cuffing a body to zipping up one, so you needed a good voice. One to settle nerves and tempers. One to serve hostilely and brutality. Another to dish out logic and assurance.

So Keith had a sick talk. In and out of the field. Applied extraordinarily in the bedroom, people went bonkers for the unpolished cut of his voice, the bruise from his hands, the hard girth of his cock.

But Lance man—

His game was better, double wielding the characteristics and trademarks of an omega and an alpha.

Keith packed shotgun shells in his vocal cords and Lance chambered calibers for super-powered sniper rifles.

So when he shuddered, he had a good damn reason.

“I’ll do you better. I’ll eat you out.”

“No way, really? Hell yea. I’m makin you come super-fast now,” he declared and worked his jaw side to side in order to dismiss the stiffness in the joint.

A fraction of Keith felt tempted to tease Lance and ask if he was out of practice. The wiser part of Keith said  _who cares, let’s get him back on track_.

Fully stretched Lance pecked his nose with a kiss; a sweet gesture until he ruined it with this. “Okay. Gonna make you cum. I’ll swallow, don’t worry.”

“Lance—“

Keith didn’t get an opportunity to finish...his statement, Lance was taking care of that other need requiring completion and he felt it suck tight and wet around his cock, tongue swirling.  Lance rapidly led him down the rabbit hole of sex.

Keith writhed as his climax drew closer. Started moving his hips in time to Lance’s mouth, feeding his cock as he slurped upward. Then Keith bucked  _hard_  and his yells were not of pleasure but of pain.

Lance moved off him, eyes rampant with blood pumping panic.

Keith favored his side and grimaced as the pain throbbed profoundly. “Oh shit. Bad move.”

“Fuck,” Lance barked, completely beside himself with alarm and horror, and looked for something to do with his hands to ease the pain then realized he couldn’t and sat there dumbly, babbling. “I was tryin’ to be sexy. Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I won’t touch your dick, ever.”

“My fault. Don’t worry,” Keith said when the severe sting subsided.

Lance shuffled on his knees. “Did it reopen?”

Keith leaned back in the chair and rolled his shirt from the hem, cock flaccidly laying on his navel; the bandages were still in their pristine white state.

Lance stared at the bandages, voiceless when it came to language but loud when it came to scents. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, achingly sincere. Keith hurt mentally and emotionally at the somber quality. “I’m an idiot.”

Keith dropped his shirt and leaned on his knees, tapping a finger to Lance’s cheek until he looked up from his hands. “Hey. That’s not…okay, true —“

“Oh. How sweet of you,” Lance interjected sourly.

Keith chuckled, lifted and soaring the clouds because Lance was doing everything in his power to make Keith happy. He spooned him a bowl of ice cream. Carried out blankets for Keith to curl into. Made him laugh uncontrollably to the point of pain. Kissed him sweet. Kissed him hot. Touched him like the world was ending

There wasn’t a thing to be apologetic for. The pain sucked but it was going to be a friend of his for some time.

“But you’re my idiot who I’m happy isn’t treating me like I’m glass.”

“No. You just have a bullet sized hole in your stomach.”

“It’ll be a hot scar one day,” Keith teased in hopes to lift Lance’s mood. “You like guys with scars?”

“Don’t play, are you really okay?”

“Dude, yes…So if I asked if we could continue, you would say…?”

“No way.”

“Shit.”

Now that yielded a smile from him, “Well I guess that doctor wasn’t bullshitting us.”

“Yea. We’re boring PG-13 for now.”

“Dude. There’s sex in PG-13s. We’re PG, any and all sex happens off screen or is thinly implied.”

 

    

 

[x]

 

 

Keith and Pidge picked up their order from the serving window and sat under a shady umbrella. Heat shimmers danced in the distance. The numbers on the thermometer scaled into near three digits to the chagrin of Chicagoans who endured winters better than summers. It was ponytail season for them both.

Keith unwrapped the foil packaging of his tacos. Steam whipped up into the air, free to escape. “So how it is patrolling by yourself?”

“Good,” Pidge crinkled the foil back. “I get to ride behind the wheel and not listen to another alpha cop bitch about me using restraint.”

“Man you are a bad liar,” he laughed. “Getting rusty Pidgey.”

Pidge blew impatiently on her steaming food. “Shut up. I only miss you a little.”

“You sound like a tsundere.”

“The fuck is that?”

He shrugged lazily and picked at the shredded meat, the chunks of onion and cilantro dressing his tortilla. This place came at the highest recommendation from Lance and after the whole chicken nugget in honey thing Keith trusted Lance’s taste buds without reserve. “Something Lance is showing me. “

A minute here if you would so kindly redirect your attention because Lance was a shower and teacher of many things.

One of the things Lance showed him—

Kisses in the rain weren’t exclusive to romance novels and pivotal moments in films. Ordinary people could acquire them as easy. It was good until rainwater rolled to his eye and blinded him.

Showed—

Keith that you weren’t too old or too cold for empty playgrounds and swing sets. They occupied the swings and kicked woodchips as time passed with no recognition, no weight. Light streamed over Lance’s face as he spoke, engaged in the retelling of his story about him and Hunk pranking Allura.

The best of times were the ones when you forgot about the time.

Showed—

Keith a wealth of doting concern. Lance had no medical background, not that the guy was an idiot he was an engineer and semantics liked big brains in their operation, but that didn’t hinder him from stripping Keith of his shirt and tenderly peeling the binding to oversee the state of his wound.

 Being teasing, Keith referred to him as Dr. Lance during these thorough physical exams.

Showed—

Keith a million ways to smile.

Achy cheeks would be a chronic pain from this point until he died.

Alright, show’s over.

Keith wanted the opportunity to gloat.

Pidge made the risky decision of eating her food before it cooled, scorched tongue be damned. She chewed, Keith looking for her verdict, and nodded.  “Yea. I forgot you homos got all hitched with all the repressing you did.”

“We’re bonded,” he corrected. One wedding was enough for him, the preparations alone were migraine inducing. Lance tricked him into assisting on a few things since he was the best man and all. “For now until it’s time.”

“Oh my god. Just mate already, do you need to get shot twice to grow some balls and fuck him? And before you say ‘oh I wanna wait till he’s ready’, Lance would hop on your dick in a fuckin mall if you asked him. I’m kinda jealous of how devoted of an omega he is.”

Keith’s cheeks inflamed, off guard. “Look we tried doing stuff—“

“Fucking,” Pidge oh so helpfully tagged in.

“And I get pain when I try to…”

“Pound him,” she smiled; Keith’s embarrassment and patient found unstable footing.

He turned to her and said pleasantly in a voice that invited no such thing, “You know I don’t need you to fill in the blanks. This isn’t an English exam.”

“Am I wrong though?” She wiped her mouth with a napkin.

Keith didn’t answer right away— that was proving her right and while she was, she didn’t deserve the satisfaction.— and picked up a taco instead.

Pidge’s excessively cocksure smirk blossomed wider with each second Keith delayed. All her teeth and gums showed. She had the becomings of a future Disney villain.

Unable to withstand it anymore, Keith swallowed and said. “Fine, I tried going down on him. Like down  _down_  and I got carried away and hurt myself. Lance freaked the fuck out. The mood was ruined. We’ll both die soon of blue balls. The end.”

There!

Happy?

Not like Keith’s ego was bruised or anything.

Yea, Lance laughed then forgave him right after but Keith was his alpha. A certain duty saddled the title, an extremely willing one okay, don’t misunderstand. Plus he had the  _taste_ of Lance’s candy slick on his tongue and the omega writhing and bucking and moaning so madly, so wantonly that the guy could easily pick up stripping or modeling as a career choice if he ever chose so.

 Back arched. Hips  _roll-ing_ , not rolling, but  _roll-ing_. Naked from the waist. Legs just spread, man.

Spread, shit on automatic. Mechanic. Taught. A learned behavior. Well educated on the verses of seduction and depravity.

 Like bon appetit, Keith.

 Get a taste, alpha.

Here comes the ice cream truck packed with icy, sugary delights all made for the tongue. Melt in your mouth good. Better than Baskin Robbins thirty-one flavors

And his moans.

Just.

The entire time.

Repeat.

Replay.

Eardrums ringing with the echoes of—

_Keith, Keith,_

_Lick me_

_Eat me_

_Fuck me_

_Yes_

_Yes_

It was fine. Keith recovered from stabbings and now a shooting; blue balls posed no real threat to him. Remember—

Man of Steel.

Bulletproof— no, unstoppable.

Cool as ice.

Keith was not recovering well emotionally.

“Wow. This is like a sitcom. You rimmed him and fuckin injured yourself in the process. Were you humpin the bed?”

“No. No more details. I said enough.”

She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her shorts. “I can literally text Lance and he’ll tell me.”

Keith extended his hand. “Stop stealing my omega.”

Pidge shuffled. “Bitch, he’s my platonic boyfriend.”

“I shouldn’t have invited you over for dinner. Lemme see your phone.”

“You’re not an active cop so fuck you civilian.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith watched the tranquil navy blue waves from the stone ledge of the pier. Erosion ate the stone. The climbing ladder bolted to the face of the pier had browned, a safety net for anyone silly or clumsy enough to tumble into the unforgiving lake at Navy Pier. Murkiness prevented Keith from seeing how far the lake floor was from his perch. Seagulls complained from the air as they swooped low over the rippling surface of blue in search of food remnants.  Tourist and locals strolled down the pavement; others occupied the steps and chatted in the descending sun.

Lance laid his head on his shoulder. Lips pressed chastely on the column of his neck. An act of affection and not of seduction.

Keith liked this. The stillness of this when they didn’t talk or move yet managed to talk and run in the space of inactivity.

They were nowhere exotic, did nothing of finical worth, the fanciest thing they ever did as a couple was dining out at Connie’s and they were too immature to order anything beyond a regular deep dish pizza. Somehow Keith felt richer than a millionaire on paid vacation in Dubai. Richer than Louboutins. Finer than Egyptian cotton. Full as the sea. Alive as a jungle blooming with flowers and wildlife.

Funny how a single person could alter the course of your life so dramatically, for better or worse, in this case, better.

Maybe fate didn’t exist. Or silly notions like true love but Lance was giving him a close second to the idea.

Lance picked his head up, breath hitching, a hand tapped Keith excitedly. He looked and laughed because Lance glowed with warmth every time a dog panted by. This one was a fluffy Husky.

“Go ahead. I know you wanna pet him.”

“I don’t wanna be a creep,” he said, still watching the owner and the Husky.

“You’re missin your chance.”

“We should get a dog.”

“We don’t live together.”

“We could,” Lance suggested, shy. Keith could time the precise second Lance’s omega curled away slightly as if to brace for rejection.

Keith hugged Lance tight physically and his alpha mimicked it, scent seeking the skittering omega. “I gotta see if it’s okay to have an animal first.”

“You sure?”

“Dude you’re always at my house. You eat all my food and you leave the toilet seat up. You live there already.”

“Yea but I leave at some point.”

“Cause of work or to get clothes. Which you leave at my place too.”

Lance smiled, then turned wistfully to stare at the horizon. “I guess you’re right. Didn’t think of it like that. It’s just odd…”

“What’s odd?”

“Lotor and I…I hate bringing him up and everything but it felt harder doing these things with him. Moving in. Bonding. Living together. And I’m doing all that and I seriously don’t think about it, you know. Just I gotta see you and I gotta keep an eye on you and even when you annoy me, I can’t act all petty and just ignore you.”

“I’m annoying?”

“Oh yea. All the time. I come back for that sweet booty. I think it’s what keeps us together. Dat ass, you're my Iggy and Nicki.”

“Shut up. You picked flowers for me last week. Remember, thief, you stole them from the park?”

Lance pulled away and gestured violently, laughing at the silliness of the argument. The fact that they were debating over their sappy nature and nothing more. No digs. No jabs. No call of each other’s character. “First, there’s no law about picking flowers. Second, you liked them so you’re the bigger sap in this equation. You bought a vase for them.”

“Well I didn’t want them to die after you went through the trouble. And I like getting flowers, fight me.”

“You’re the weirdest alpha I have ever met.”

“That’s not true. There’s Shiro. He’s really weird. I know he likes to act super cool all the time but he is a fuckin nerd. You know he dressed up as Power Ranger?”

“Wow. You have no loyalty.”

“I had to dress as Blue Ranger cause he wanted to be the red one. I am too loyal.”

“Pictures or it didn’t happen.”

“Give you more ammunition, I think not.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

The doctor prodded the wound with trained caution. “How’s that? Any pain?”

Keith shook his head. “Not really.”

“I’ll apply a little more pressure, let me know if you get any,” she warned and administered a gradual amount of force.

He hissed when the pressure nicked a nerve. “I feel something.”

“How bad would you rate it?”

He thought it over, the ceiling filled his vision from where he laid out with his shirt rolled up to his chest and his feet tipping the table’s ledge. “I say a four.”

“The area should be sensitive for some time but it seems to me you’re healing fine. You can probably go back to work in a few weeks,” she turned away and peeled off her sterile gloves and dumped them in the trash.

Keith sat and pulled his shirt down, “So I’m clear for physical activities?

“Define the activity.”

Keith drummed his fingers. “Uh. Sex.”

She laughed, “As long as the sex isn’t on top of a motorcycle, you should be fine.  Have you been working out during your recovery?”

“A little. Mostly lifting. Nothing too heavy.”

“Any cardio?”

“Walking. Jogging.”

“Then you should be fine to engage in sexual intercourse, Mr. Kogane. But as your doctor, keep it simple. Missionary. Doggie.”

Keith barked. “Thanks. D-didn’t think I get this type of advice from my doctor.”

“You’re newly bonded. I can smell it.” She tapped her nose. “People like to bond first, then mate right away.”

“No. Well. We just got together after knowing each other for a while so it’s been…”

“Oh.”

“Yea. All that.”

“Well I hope you two will still be careful. It would quite anticlimactic to end up in the ER on your special night.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Keith shot Lance a text on his way out of the clinic.

 

_Keith_

_Green light for sex_

_Lance_

_OMG. Shut up. REAlly? Im getting a cake_

_Keith_

_Fuck the cake. Bring that sexy body._

_Lance_

_Babe I always bring the sexy_

_Keith_

_Forget it. I’ll jerk off instead._

_Lance_

_Ill jerk it too and ill think of a bigger dick_

_Keith_

_I’ll think of a bigger ass_

_Lance_

_=O babe, why you so cruel to me._

_Lance_

_Im heartbroken. Im sorry God didn’t make me hella thick like Nicki._

_Lance_

_Is dat what you want? A big ass._

_Keith_

_You’re stupid. See me tomorrow so I can show you what I want._

_Lance_

_You nasty_

_Keith_

_Hell yea. You’re going to see that very soon._

_Lance_

_Ill brace my butthole._

_Keith_

_Stop texting unsexy things. LOL_

_Lance_

_I like makin you laugh so no._

_Keith_

_I want to say something sweet but all I have is a boner_

_Lance_

_Is the boner for me?_

_Keith_

_Yea_

_Lance_

_AWWW! BABE!_

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance walked in with a box from Weber’s Bakery and showed Keith the icing script on the strawberry and cream layered cake.  The poor penmanship of the words favored the suggestion that Lance bought the cake from the bakery and dropped off to the nearest Jewel for those tubes exclusively made for writing homemade messages. Also the cake said  _we can fuck now_ and Keith doubted the bakery would write down the request personally.

“A pre-fuck cake. “ Keith gaped, “I thought you were kidding.”

Lance blew air out his nose and smugly leaned his elbow on the counter. “Babe. It’s me.”

“Oh yea,” he said, dismal. “How could I forget if there’s an inkling of a chance you can make a joke out of anything you would take it. So silly of me.”

Lance flipped the lid over the cake. “Fine. No cake for you.”

Keith flicked it back and dragged his finger through the chilled icing. “But you bought it for me.”

“For us. I’m congratulating myself too. For making that scoreboard.”

Keith sucked on his finger, “It’s a good thing God made you really hot.”

“I know. I’m blessed,” Lance said.

 He managed a good front, acting so nonchalant about Keith licking icing with his finger and tongue, and Keith might buy if were it not for his scent broadcasting how bad he needed that tongue and finger in him.

“You should show me these blessings,” he purred.

Lance bent over in laughter, righting himself to say with a giggly smile. “That line was awful.”

“Fine. I want you to take your pants off and bend over the counter. Then I’m wanna fuck you, cum, and rim your ass. After that I’m putting you on the floor on all fours and fucking you again.”

Not so amusing now, huh?

Nah.

Funny-man Lance had the most incriminating expression.

“Jesus.”

“Then I’m filling your mouth with my dick until you can’t talk.”

Lance blushed furiously, speechless. “Keith.”

“Then I want you to ride me and let me watch you play with yourself while you use my dick. Is that better?”

“Dude,” Lance whispered in quite the state of dramatics. “You’re nasty.”

Keith misunderstood and stuttered, confidence flagging, “I-if that’s too much like we don’t have to do all that. Look I was trying to be the hot macho alpha.”

“Oh no. I meant ‘you’re nasty’ with reverence. You’re perfect. I can’t wait for you to destroy my butthole.”

“Stop saying butthole,” Keith pleaded.

“What’s wrong with it? You don’t mind putting your tongue there.”

“Look, rimming you isn’t the problem. It’s the word.”

“Butthole,” he said again to annoy Keith.

The alpha pressed his lips into a no-nonsense line. “I won’t put anything in or around it if you keep saying that word.”

Lance called his bluff. “Yea. Okay. Did you forget how eager you were to lick it last time?”

“No. Because you were screaming.”

“And you moaned super loud when I was blowing you,” Lance snipped.

“Well your big mouth has to be good at something. Guess it’s sucking big dicks.”

“Average dicks,” he amended.

“Are we really arguing over oral?”

“It’s a good sign. We’re the Marshal and Lily of couples. We fight over stupid shit, we high five after we kill a pizza together, and we call each other pet names, Lilypad.”

“Well bless FX.”

“The cake means something else too,” Lance said with eyes staring off to the wall behind Keith.

“What, love handles?”

Lance made a pained groaned and combed his hand in agitation. “I’m gonna put it out there. My heat’s comin’ and I thought we should seal this shit. And I see you freakin out so let me explain how mating works. It’s like duct tape.”

Freaking? Understatement.

A yard stretch cleverly planted with land mines from him to freedom. One false footing and boom— bye freedom, ta-ta years growing old and lazy with Lance in this apartment.

Much more accurate.

Keith opened the fridge, snatched a beer, and twisted the cap. Drank, while Lance rolled his eyes at his wildly out of proportion reaction to the news (huh, guess he was picking up Lance’s habits), then said. “I thought you wouldn’t want to since your last mate sucked ass.”

_And I don’t wanna suck. Not at this. Not with you._

“So?” Lance barked, simple. It was something of a talent and a minor annoyance Lance simplified issues that Keith would fester over for weeks. “That was back then and between me and him. This is between us. If you wanna put it off until you’re comfortable then that’s fine but I want to. Duct tape myself to you. You’re always in my god damn head so…It’s too soon, right?”

“I don’t want you to make the wrong choice.”

More correctly he didn’t want to be another ex in the making which, granted could happen either way, but this was a huge crucial step. A critical one, poor judgement would cost Lance and he ached for him so long, so strongly just to simply jeopardize it over fleeting wants.

“Whoa, are you seriously comparing our relationship to my previous one? Keith, the only similarity between you and Lotor is that you’re alphas but that it.”

“I’m already winging things with the bond. What if shit goes bad and we gotta break it off?” The hint of it tied a cumbersome weight to his heart. His alpha lumbered slow with melancholy.

The bond helped. Let what was hard to speak with words be spoken with scents.

Lance grabbed his hands and tugged the unwilling alpha into his body. Keith went, face so close to fathering the same expression of a recently chided child that it was small wonder Lance didn’t give him some grief over it.

 The omega engulfed him in a soothing scent, the weight roped to his heart was cut, the somber nature afflicting his alpha ceased. In a second Lance healed all his ailments with his touch.

He kissed Keith on the forehead. “You’re chicken.”

“Lance,” he said with the sharpness on steel.

“I get that way too. It’s really stupid how we happened. We’re the cliché they sell in movies, Keith, so we gotta believe that it can’t happen because the media is bullshit. But what if shit does happen like that? Right? Crazier things have gone down, why is this hard to think maybe we’re good for each other? I think it. You make me happy. I don’t feel lesser or stupid with you. You don’t treat me like I’m inferior to you. You’re a good alpha.”

“Sorry.”

Lance joked. “You wanna cry it out?”

Keith snapped his arms around Lance’s waist and buried his face, overcome with the knowledge he wasn’t alone. His thoughts and feelings weren’t his, Lance shared them too.

 “I don’t know how to do the mating thing,” he mumbled into Lance’s shirt.

Lance laughed wetly, whatever emotion in him scarcely kept at bay. Hey, no judgment here, Keith was no better but it was a pro of relationships- the ease of breaking your ribs for another to peek at your beating heart, bloody and undignified.  “It’s cool. I know how. First, we need a place to get jiggy with it so that’s step one. Two, time off. I already put in mine at work and you’re still on medical leave. Three, water. We can get that the day before. And four, fucking. And bam, mates. Not hard…well we will both be hard but I’ll make it good for you.”

“So we just fuck?”

“Basically. You’re gonna want to fuck twenty-four seven, dude. I can blink at you and you’ll want me on my back.”

“That’s every day.”

“Then you should pick it up easy.” Lance leaned back and coaxed the alpha out of his hidey hole, tipping his chin up. “Now show me my sexy alpha, who’s gonna fuck the shit out of me. C’mon, say it. You’re gonna…”

Keith stared.

Lance motioned with his hand,  _come on now_.

The alpha sighed and droned, “…Fuck the shit outta you. This is stupid, please stop.”

“Alright. Alright. For you, I’ll stop.” He laughed, slotting his curling lips to Keith’s frowning ones. Rapidly they curved too, an easy prey to Lance.

“Do you like the cake?” Lance asked after the kiss. “I got one with strawberries so it won’t kill your figure.”

“Much kindness.”

“Did you just meme? Oh my god. Hot. Fit. A marshmallow.  And memes. We’re mating so damn hard, dude.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance and Keith hefted groceries from the trunk of the car to the apartment.

Lance dropped the third case of plastic water bottles on the counter and huffed, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Ready?”

Keith was about to have the fuck of his lifetime and every inch that currently wasn’t fantasying  _all_ the interesting, tasty positions to take Lance in, entertained each of this positions going wrong. Or in the scariest case, Lance not reaching multiple climaxes. Keith researched—an admittedly poor call on his part thus his new developed fear—omegas in heat could orgasms up to a six a day.

 A day

Six.

Lance’s heat spanned three to four days, give or take.

Doing the math here, kiddos, that was eighteen to twenty-four orgasms. If you couldn’t count the number on one set of fingers alone then the sum was too great.

What if he had a weak cock, don’t laugh this was a serious inquiry. Say he couldn’t fulfill his duty and get it up time and time again, then what?

Would Lance just ache and want the whole time and use a toy to meet his needs?

Keith stared into the bags stuffed with junk food. Taking Lance’s word, time for a proper meal wouldn’t be given since heats meant you fucked, shit, and slept. So easy and fatty foods were a must.  “No.”

“All you gotta do is slay that puss... Sorry I mean butthole,” Lance instructed for the seventh time this day. You should’ve heard him at the produce section where Lance had compared Keith’s level of hardness and length to a number of fruits and vegetables.

Keith laughed, an easy prey to Lance’s idiotic humor. He said and set the bags on the counter. “Stop.”

“Smash that ass,” Lance pressed.

“Lance I swear—“

“Wait, wait,” the omega cut him short. “I got a better one. Hammer Time. Get it, you’re hammering my assho—“

“Take your Nicki Minja booty, your bad humor and leave me in peace.”

“So your anaconda do? I got buns. Hot buns. Sweet buns.”

“I’m putting my dick in your mouth. Get on your knees and open up. Your tyranny ends today.”

“Make me, officer. Holy shit— don’t grab your nightstick.”

Keith tapped the length of the nightstick against his thigh and said in Spanish, “ _No. No. On your knees, smartass_.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

They chilled around the place. Watched all the bad films on LifeTime and FX since HBO and STARS strictly scheduled the best movies during the weekdays when work and sleep didn’t permit freedom. Cold beers and salty chips filled their bellies. The remote had residue over the buttons because Lance firmly believed his sweats were better napkins than actual napkins.

Keith had never been much a couch potato. Too much alpha. A tank load of testosterone. His body didn’t understand the concept of rest. Yet his skin didn’t crawl with unease. The alpha hardly barked a complaint at the idle nature.

Lance had explained the heat would come on its own like a period to which Keith had grimaced, causing Lance to laugh and say more eloquently  _your alpha’s gonna know way before you do, he’ll tell you when it’s time_.

_So what’s up_ , Keith thought because he had the impression heats worked similar to grenades and bullets, instantaneous and blue tipped hot, the pornos depicted as such. The alpha lassoed violently by it. The omega’s legs and arms commanded by it to drop and present wetly and whorishly.

But Lance still looked and smelled the same.

Looked—

Resplendent and handsome with the afternoon light breaking through the drawn blinds, shimmering motes floating like fairies around him as he watched the TV.

Smelled—

As delectable and forbidden the night he’d brought him home. Honey. Salt water. Earth. And sugary. A collection of scents by right should not mix very well but did, splendidly.

He wanted him the same. Cared for him the same.

So what gives?

Where’s the fire, ese?

Donde esta?

Come on.

This shit was  _murder_ , ain’t it?

The slow burn.

The  _thirst_.

America’s prime income,  _sex_.

The sin on the pole and between a John’s open legs.

The wet roll of ice cream down the cone on a boiling summer’s day. So hot it made ice particles into rain drops.

The illegal strip of clothes on pretty things. You know, the thin fabric wore for the illusion of appeasing society and the grown ups but packed as much sex as a lacey number.

The seductive shadow of color on eyelids.

The wet gloss on lips.

Sex hair, the knots and waves.

Cock wet, mouths wide on moans, the only music they knew. The only instrument they played.

The liquid in the bones.

The lava in the blood.

The flame to burn a whole city down like before. Chicago burned once, it could handle a second one.

He studied Lance with a beer in his hand, eyes full of water and skin dark brown from countless hours in the summer’s glow, when the crawl began. The heat didn’t drop like a bomb. Didn’t explode like a hot grenade.

It moved  _slow_. An ember crawl over dry wood. The char left in its wake.

Lance dumped the empty bottle in the trash. Back to Keith. But he must be feeling it though because his body stiffened and his hands gripped the counter for balance.

Keith was not himself at this point.

Not the man Lance knew.

Not the alpha who held his hand as they crossed the street. The alpha who saw blue flowers and wondered if Lance would like it if he surprised him with a dozen.

Nah.

The thing he was, this creature of immeasurable arousal and strength, was  _alpha_.

Keith molded himself to Lance’s back and mindlessly dry humped his ass, eating up that fucking friction. The fat bulge grinding sweet and dirty into Lance’s perky ass. The wetness darkening the fabric. The way Lance  _gave in_.  Blind acceptance. No fight. No banter. No sass. His place deserving of the position. His nature letting him know to push his ass out and spread his legs. Nature saying be the whore, be the slut, be wicked, be the wetness for your alpha.

Turn him on.

Get him  _fire_.

Make him know his body.

Fuck because it was in your nature.

Fuck because it was your job.

Fuck because this was your mate, your future, the salt and sugar, the moon and the sun all in one.

Please.

Please.

“Keith,” he moaned in a voice belonging to him and the  _omega_. The man and the creature. For some reason, the bass rumble was horribly obscene. Gross. Wet. Dirty. The fuck Lance, how’d you get so damn wild?  “S-shit. You there, babe?”

Keith sized his hips and wrenched him back on his cock. Situated his dick so it rubbed between the loose stitching of Lance’s joggers. The meaning could not be misread. Intention explicit, like  _baby you’re getting it there_.

Lance whimpered. Rocked back.

Yea.

He was  _there_.

“Here.”

“Horny?” Lance teased.

Keith coiled his fingers under the collar of his shirt and ripped the fabric clean without thought as though he was no more a prehistoric man with big knuckles and a small headspace, and exposed the naked, brown skin of the omega’s collar and shoulder.

“Did you just fuckin’ rip my shirt?”

Keith put his mouth to the skin, dizzy at the taste in his mouth. The rich scents of honey, salt water, and earth strongest there. “Sorry,” he said and licked Lance. Kissed. Mouthed. Nipped.

“Chill, man.” Lance soothed, reaching back to caress calm into Keith. “We got days.”

True but days were long and Keith was in a time crunch.

He mouthed a sloppy track of kisses up the omega’s neck. He traced the shell of his ear and said. “Tell me how to fuck you, yea. Wanna make it good, Lance. Wanna make you cum.”

Lance shivered. The wet lick of Keith’s mouth working the heat quickly through. The black rasp of his voice on his skin working slick out of him.  “O-oh. Okay. Lemme think…I’m not loose yet so you gotta get me open for the first round.”

“Can I eat your ass?” He asked, voice heavy and massive to class as a mega heavyweight in the UFC weight registry.

“Jesus. Yea, man. Dive in. Have fun.”

Lance didn’t know it but he literally Okie-Dokie his own funeral saying those words.

Keith dropped fast, tugged on the pants of the jogger so the worn out pants slithered over Lance’s ass to pool in a pile at his ankles, and helped Lance toed out. Cause he was going to need room, you know, to spread his legs.

“Commando. I see.” Keith said. Stared at glistening wetness starting to track between his ass cheeks to the back of his thighs. His cock hung, heavy and swinging when he shifted his legs apart and braced his body on the counter.

“Why play, right?”

Keith palmed his ass, spread him, and grew intensely hot at the sight of his wet hole twitching.  He won’t be charitable or eloquent with his thoughts— seeing Lance wet made him thicker, diamond hard, and conjured the most deplorable images in him. Like Keith got dirty, guys liked dirty and filthy no matter if you fucked guys or girls or whatever between but he was tasteful about it. Classy.

Now the un-classiest images of Lance played through his mind’s eye. Lance leaking thick cum and slick down his thighs. Lance on all fours with his hole red and wide. Lance choking on him to the point that breath was impossible. Lance gagged and cuffed to his bed. Lance answering to his beck and call in ass-less underwear.

Heat made you a mess. Not just horny. But whore without reservations.

He ran his thumb near the rim. Lance responded fast and whined.

Keith examined his thumb and the shiny coat of slick on the pad. He cleaned it off. It was sweet and salty. His mouth felt parched.

“Damn.”

Right?

Fucking hell, man.

Keith got a sample and wanted to buy out the whole damn inventory. Wanted to buy out the company and their stock holding.

Lance’s head popped up, well down for the omega but up for Keith, cheeks red from the teasing. The torn fabric of his shirt dangled as he shifted. “Keith. C’mon.”

Keith smirked as a devious idea took life and leaned forward and lapped unskillfully at the heavy head of the omega’s cock. Probably didn’t feel as good as it would were Keith sucking on him in the right direction yet Lance twitched, mouth falling open, and watched. “Alpha.”

Keith sucked the head into his mouth and groaned around it. Tasted salt and the bitter sweetness of pre-cum flooding on his tongue as he poked the slit and ran circles around the swollen crown.

“Baby. B-baby,” Lance stuttered, hips jerking forward by instinct.

Keith opened his mouth. Let gravity slide Lance’s cock back out with a noticeable twitch.  He rasped, voice gritty .“What?”

“D-don’t…’what’ me. Get your mouth on me.”

“I thought I get the say here.”

“Rogue, remember?”

A track of slick curved around Lance’s thigh to his knee. “You sure about that?” Keith questioned, then ducked to retrace the wet path. Felt such a grotesque twist of satisfaction tug at his cock when a shiver traveled down the omega’s thighs.  He smacked his lips once he finished, mouth shimmery. “You taste sweet.”

“Yea?”

“Like eating candy.”

Lance laughed, winded. “You’re weird.”

“Said by the guy asking me to eat him.”

“You offered.  Which you aren’t doin’ by the by.”

Keith feigned offense. “I should change that. You can’t talk if I put my tongue in you.”

“Very fun— Fuck!”

Keith smirked against his wet hole at the abrupt cry then went back to it. A hand on each cheek. Hole exposed and red from the hormones because Keith had barely touched him there, not enough to warrant the red state of his copper skin or the dripping slick running down his crack. It worked better than dynamite to see Lance in this whorish condition from the thinnest and lightest of touches.

Applied the flat of his tongue from the bottom to the top, collected Lance’s taste on each swipe but as he cleaned him more slick glistened out his hole. Look at that, a never ending supply. Keith wiggled his tongue in next, burying his face until the burning urgency for air broke him away.

He gasped harshly, face sweaty, then pried Lance wide to go back in.

Lance moaned, rutting and fucking Keith’s face with a hand knotted through his long hair which the omega had no quarrel using to pin Keith there or to shove his face back if he dared stop for a breather.

And wow, this was embarrassing; Keith didn’t care too much if he keeled over right now. It was bliss. The lack of air. The overabundance of slick in his mouth and on his skin. The extraordinarily barbaric pleasure granted from feeling Lance use him up like a toy, like he was the alpha now, like he could give a shit if Keith got air.

Keith jerked out of the hold only to jam two fingers into Lance. A number he took so easily. Keith gave him another, dying inside when that one slid in too. No trouble. Wet path. Easy street. Lance clenched down, moaning.

Keith moaned out loud as he found out that four fingers weren’t too much.

God.

Damn.

And the sound his fingers made pumping in— oh boy. Man, oh, man. A grossly wet squelch.

He popped his fingers out. They’re coated. Keith tried not to finish then and instead summoned his legs to get up and under him and started on the zipper of his pants with his other hand. Shoved his waistband enough to have his cock out and tugged himself quick and rough with the hand lubed in slick. He was so sensitive there that the touch wrenched a hiss out of him. His hand felt too much yet not enough.

Lance unbent his spine and looked coyly over his shoulder, eating up the image of Keith’s fist flying up and down his dick. “Babe,” he called.

The length of Lance’s shirt just scarcely covered his ass.

“Up here, alpha,” Lance instructed.

Keith lifted his head.

Lance lifted the bottom of the shirt and said. “Mate me.”

Keith lined their bodies, noting faintly somehow they fit like two lost pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, and dragged his cock against Lance. He kissed Lance on the nape. The lush aroma of honey and earth clouded his senses. “Lance.”

The omega hummed, turning his head so their mouths brushed, breath whooshing over his lips.  “C’mon alpha. Want you in me.”

In a moment of tenderness and calm— an odd place for the notion amid the waves of heat but Lance had that about him; hot and sweet; the easy fuck you pinned in the darkness and the love of your life who you rolled slow and warmly into—  he kissed him.

 “Am I doing good?” He asked because despite what pornos sold, heats were for omegas and not alpha to get off on their power kink. You mated an omega; you took care of them first. 

“I was screaming if you forgot.”

“Just wanna do right by you.”

Lance grabbed Keith’s hand, placed it on his cock so Keith felt the heat and weight of him, then moved him between his legs. Wet still; Keith wanted to run his fingers down it again.  “That a good clue, officer.”

“I know you’re wet but wet from me or wet from heat.”

“I think you know why I’m wet. You just want me to say it. Perv.”

“Only a little.”

The look Lance laid managed to carry equal amounts of affection and sex.  Smiled a sweet, cute number then morphed at a glacial pace to one bathed in kerosene. A bad thing considering Keith felt an inch away from burning inside but hey, they called it  _heat_ for a very good reason.

  “You’re doin’ good,” Lance husked, dark, doing to Keith what chainsaws did to tree trunks. Sawing and slicing through without kindness. And that was Keith got— no kindness.  No time-out. No breather. No slow reboot for his brain. “Now I want you to fuck me good too. I wanna forget my name and our address.”

“That’s a big order.”

Lance cocked a sleazy smile and backed on Keith’s dick. “Good thing your dick’s pretty fat.”

Keith shuddered, gripping Lance to roll into him. His cock met wetness. “Fuck. A-are you ready?”

 “I will put your dick in myself if you don’t, man. I’m not above manhandling a cop.”

“Just wanna be sure.”

“This isn’t the Notebook. I like you now and Imma like you the next morning now fuck me.”

“Condom?”

“Nah. All you, boo.”

“It might be a lot.”

“Good.”

Lance braced his hand back on the counter but his sight was firmly rooted on Keith as he grabbed his dick at the base and lined the head. At the first press came  _carnage_ to his body. A heat so boiling he couldn’t say if pain or pleasure grinding his teeth and closing his eyes. He felt Lance moving. Bucking like an impatient stallion.

Keith asked when his found his voice. “G-good?” Sounded like complete shit. As though he ran for thousands of miles. His chest heaved rapidly where the cotton of his shirt clung to his body. The collar of it had a damp stain.

A deep moan rattled out his throat. “ _Yes. Yes_.”

 He pressed deeper, hissing at the wet tightness seizing his cock, and watched himself be swallowed inch by inch. Keith pasted his chest to Lance’s back once he bottomed fully and licked the salt off his skin. The heat scorching his body came from an unidentifiable source.

The omega shivered.  “D-don’t stop. You…you got a job to do, alpha.”

Keith nipped him for his sass. Brought his hand down sharply on his ass and groped hard.

Lance sobbed. The quiver racing through him passed along Keith, sharing the pleasure. Keith drove his hand down again, ate up the meaty smack of his strike and the easy bend of skin and fat beneath his coiling fingers. The breath in Lance evicted itself.

 He wanted Lance in bruises. Wanted him to be tagged with the signature of his hands, teeth, and cum. Wanted the organs in him to struggle against the onslaught as Keith fucked him, mated him, proved himself as Lance’s alpha.

Keith latched his mouth to Lance’s back, seeking an outlet for this near berserk desire, and tasted the cotton of his shirt.

Poor guy was going get  _fucked up_  by the time Keith was done.

The fabric was soaked when he released it. “If you’re gonna talk it better be about how you want my dick or my name. Got it?”

Lance froze as if someone hit the pause button on him, his shivering ceasing, the poor breathing his body attempted to do in efforts so he didn’t fucking collapse into darkness, failing. Keith could time the second it all stopped to the next. Shouldn’t be getting this hard at Lance’s body and its poor ability to resume basic functions but well, it was quite enabling.

 Gasping, reanimated, Lance moaned.  “G-got it.”

Keith steadied a hand on the side of his hip and started to draw back and looked down as his cock squelched out, red and glistening, and groaned because not only could he not endure the sight of his dick pumping in and out of Lance’s hole but Lance was squeezing him for every inch lost.

Got most of his cock out to the tip and eased it back in, the glide back wetter than before. Hotter than it should have any right but he wasn’t about to complain about it.

Fucked Lance kindly at first like a teen with his dick in  _someone_ rather than  _something_ for the first time. It worked fine for like two seconds until Lance decided to tag in and help and bucked back.

And you know what, Keith tried hard to be gentle and slow because he  _loved_ the guy. Loved him enough to take things others considered for a second and gave it a eon. He wanted to be different. To be right for Lance. To be the good his ex wasn’t and yea, Lance had said that he didn’t make comparisons and Keith shouldn’t either but he wanted this and Lance for so long. He wanted to. He cared. Lance shed light in places Keith had forgotten where in him.

But if Lance wanted to be a douche and all and make this magical mating as nasty as Keith tried to make it sappy and sweet then fuck it.

Nasty it was.

Dirty it would be.

He’d cuddle the shit out of him after and tell him beautiful things in his ear until Lance could be legally called a violent red.

He rolled his hips back, cock dragging out unkindly, and drove in fast and hard like a war hammer. The force bumped Lance against the counter. He went on his toes, gasping as another thrust rammed him harder against the bottom cabinets and drawers. The sound he made could be nothing but pain, come on man he sounded as though he was receiving a foot to his gut, yet Lance reached a hand back blindly, smacking Keith twice, until he found leveraged in his hair and pulled.

Keith ran his hands under his shirt and palmed his chest and figured out it was another easy way to move Lance on his cock so he applied pressure for the omega to follow

“K-Keith. Like that. Please.”

Keith slammed hard, feeling his climax rushing fast. “Fuck. Lance. Gonna cum. C-can I cum in you? Wanna cum in you so bad. Please.”

“Yea, baby. Fill me in. Wanna feel it. Wanna have it,” Lance rasped. He relinquished the hand knotted in Keith’s hair and moved it between his legs, busying it with his cock. “I’m almost there, baby. Almost the—fuck.”

Keith closed his eyes on a moan. If he watched Lance play with his cock any longer he would be done for the count. “H-hurry.”

“Shit. Now. Now.”

Keith pumped into at a mad pace then seized all together and dropped all his weight on Lance who worked his cock and hips and made use of Keith’s hardness before he went limp. He whined as Lance moved on him feverishly. A wetness leaked out between each thrust.

“Lance,” he whimpered, spent completely.

“I-I know. Just. Wait. Fuck. Oh fuck.”

Keith mouthed delicate kisses up his nape as he tugged at his cock one more time and convulsed with his climax. The strength seemed to leave Lance then as he actually collapsed to his knees. Keith caught his torso and went down with him and laid on the cold floor with Lance pressed to his chest.

He pulled out and propped himself on his elbow to examine Lance. “Jesus, are you okay?”

The goofiest of smiles spilt Lance’s face as he said in a thin voice. “Best. Dick. Ever.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Keith exhaled with relief.

 He thumbed that goofy smile filled with a happiness he couldn’t ever recall feeling before. Maybe the heat made people mad. Maybe each second with Lance reinforced how deep he was for this guy.

“Should I be worried?”

Lance folded an arm under his head as if planning to sleep right there. “Nah, man. I’m jealous as fuck. You’re good.”

“No. Seriously.”

“It’s all good,” he yawned. His eyes drifted closed. “Just gonna nap for a bit. Then we’ll fuck again. Come on. Wanna snuggle the hell out of you.”

“You wanna snuggle on the kitchen floor?”

“Well I’m not moving anywhere if that’s what you’re implying,” Lance slurred.

“Let me get something.” Keith rolled to his feet.

A hand snatched his forearm before he could get too far. Lance looked up with droopy eyes on the verge of sleep. “Don’t go.”

Fucking adorable motherfucker.

Keith lowered, removed the surprisingly firm grip Lance had and kissed the flat of his palm. “I’m not having my mate sleep on the floor. You’re getting a god damn pillow and blanket.”

Keith could read the mirth in the slow show of Lance’s teeth, and even though his cock was limp and his body lethargic and cumbersome, he wanted Lance again. Wanted to spread him on his back and slide between those long brown legs and fill him deep.  He compromised and brushed Lance’s hair from his face.

 “Aw,” Lance teased. “You called me ‘mate’. Fuckin’ loser.”

“Yea well fuck your pretty face.”

“Not really an insult,” he hummed.

“I will not cuddle with you,” Keith lied.

“Bro, why you gotta be like that?”

“You gonna shut up?”

“Like for a minute, yea. But forever, nah.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well manage two minutes without me.”

“I’ll try.”

Keith returned a few minutes later with enough blankets and pillows to build themselves a nice camp in the kitchen. He laid one sheet down, arranged two pillows on it, rolled Lance like a heavy log because he refused to move the few centimeters, and draped both their bodies with a second blanket.

“I think I got cum and slick on the floor,” Lance said with his eyes visible. The black sheets covered the rest of him and rumpled around his shape.

Keith chuckled, he dragged his hand up and down Lance’s spine. They’d ditched the clothes a few minutes after getting under, feeling uncomfortable with their drenched clothes hanging limply off them. “Eh. That’s fine.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Keith woke up with Lance on top of him and his dick getting buried inside of Lance. A heat, sweet and intense as a forest fire, swallowed his cock head to base. Perspiration glossed prettily on the omega’s whiskey brown face and chest and made him appear ethereal for one bleary second. He surged forward, latching his hands into the round curve of Lance’s ass, and moaned as he leaned forward for a kiss, taken quickly by lust as kindling took to flames.

Lance met him, licked and kissed back like he couldn’t summon the effort to do it properly, then drifted back. He braced his hands on Keith’s hard thighs, closing his fingers on the muscle there, and  _rolled_  his body with a sweet slowness designed to ignite and kill a person.

“Lance,” Keith groaned, watching Lance slither and twist on his cock like an animal.

Lance lifted himself and dropped with a shaky moan. “Took you a while.”

Keith ran a hand up and down his chest. Pinched his brown nipples until they stiffened. Felt insanely hot because Lance watched him as he did it and moaned louder.  “I can’t even get a ‘good morning’ from you.”

“It’s not…the next day,” he panted, head thrown back in pleasure. “It’s only been an hour.”

“Damn and you’re horny already?”

Lance lifted his head though it looked to cost him a great deal of effort just to do so. “Man, this is just the start. You’re not getting any sleep tonight.”

Keith grinned, a monster to a what people called a predator, then bucked Lance unsteady and went off in that beat of weakness and put Lance on his ass. He pushed Lance’s legs over his shoulder and pumped his cock savagely.

“Oh fuck,” Lance gasped.

“Good?”

Lance clapped his back. “Yea. Go, go. This angle is perfect.”

“Slut.”

“Don’t care. Getting dick right now.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance dozed on his arm, dead to the world or until his heat emerged  _again_ and coaxed Keith’s cock to thicken and swell… _Again_. At some point, this mindless and spectacular sex turned into torture. Pleasurable torture. He had some mounting — don’t make a sex joke— concerns about whether his cock should look so blisteringly red or if it was a red flag that Lance’s hole, rimmed a bold pink from the  _number_ of times Keith put his mouth and cock there, looked no different than a manhole littered throughout every street worldwide.

Another unforeseen annoyance of the heat was his reoccurring trips to the bathroom. Hence why he was awake at this ungodly hour of seven in the morning and inching his mate off his arm with slow progress. Keith braced over Lance and tugged, feeling the weight on it give finally after ten minutes and wiggled out the pins and needles limping his arm.

As the sensation receded, Lance shifted to his side, facing Keith with an outrageously whacked smile. Black eyes raked down his body, drinking in the three days’ worth of sweat, cum, drool greased in Keith’s hair and the collection of purpling love bites and hickeys on his neck and chest as he stretched out his naked body.

Lance propped an elbow under him and denoted a sex-drenched smirk.

Fuck. It was  _the omega_. A bottomless, insatiable pit of sex.

Do you know how much sex you’d need to have to cringe at the invitation of sex?

Lucky for you, Keith did.

It was about twenty times. 

Judging by Lance’s R-rating appearance and his  _alpha_ purring at the way he laid on his back and opened his legs automatically, that number would be twenty-one soon. Probably in five minutes or so.

_The_  monster known as heat drenched Lance’s face in glossy sweat and sex.  Crooked teeth chewed on his bottom lip. “Trying to fuck me while I sleep? Cheater.”

“Actually I was trying to move you cause I gotta pee,” Keith explained.

Annoyance crossed his face and Lance crawled back under the sheets.

“Are you mad?” Keith asked his back.

The mountain of sheets answered in a voice that Lance explicitly used when he was moody. “Me, no way. Go pee.”

“Oh my god. You’re so petty. I said I had to pee. Not that I didn’t want you. I’ll give you dick and love when I’m done, babe,” he said.

Lance tucked deeper into the bed, yes they’d eventually worked from sleeping on the kitchen floor to the living room floor to the actual bedroom, drawing the sheets up to his shoulders as punishment for Keith’s false invitation then said.  “I’m sleepy.”

“Lair,” Keith called as he rolled out of bed and padded, his cock swinging between his legs, into the bathroom.

When he finished, he found Lance still tucked securely in the sheets. He gave no indication as to hearing or feeling Keith’s return and continued to lay there in mock sleep.

Smirking, Keith dragged his fingers over the sheets, feeling for an opening, and slipped his hand inside. Keith pawed his ass in a dirty grip, groaning softly at how thickly Lance filled his hand. He ripped the sheets from where they hid Lance’s ass and thighs and rutted the hot length of his cock against him. Lance moaned instantly, looking over his shoulder at Keith as he bucked back on that hardness, becoming wet.

Keith caught his lips and opened Lance’s mouth with his teeth and thrust his tongue cruelly to invite out those weak moans from the omega.  Keith wiggled two fingers between his ass cheeks and pumped them inside.

“Keith,” Lance said like he wasn’t this vision from the stars.

Wasn’t this funny guy with water eyes. Wasn’t everything that made Keith want to be a better man, a better alpha for him. Wasn’t pretty, beautiful, and the words in between. Wasn’t the guy he wanted to love and fuck until the seas dried and the stars fizzled out.

He bit his earlobe, licked the ache his teeth created and snarled low. “What made you think I was done with you?” He leaned back to pop three fingers in his mouth, slick them with his spit and wormed them between Lance’s cheeks.

A perfect heat met him as he fingered Lance.

A perfect wetness drenched his hands as he couldn’t stop himself from fucking in, going deeper and harder, so Lance arched harshly in and away from him.

“Keith. Please.”

“Yea, baby. You want cock, I know. But I like this,” he curled inside for demonstration and Lance moved like a song, all major keys. “Like seeing you being my perfect omega. My pretty slut.”

“No. Dirty talk,” he gasped between breaths, voice turning into that cocksucker’s rasp since any air he got Keith siphoned out of him with his fingers.

“Why? It gets you hot, right,” he teased, slowing his thrust to a fucking inhuman pace that had Lance practically clawing at the sheets. “I can tell when you like something. I’ve been fucking you for days, Lance. I know all your weaknesses now.”

“Asshole,” he spat with minor heat.

Keith hummed. “Well you mated this asshole so…”

“Please. Fuck me. Keith, I need it. Need it bad.”

“Need me to stuff this hole?” he slicked all three fingers out just to ram them all back in, moaning as Lance sucked on his fingers down there, at the absurd and dizzying amount of slick that pooled in response. He moved his fingers fast to hear the gross, wet sound of them pumping in and out. “Fill it up again with cock and cum?”

Lance clutched a pillow and pressed a raw moan into it. Cotton muffled his answer slightly.“Yes.”

Chasing after, Keith mouthed up the brown column of neck, biting there, sucking here, licking all over as he ghosted the words. “I could fuck you for a whole week and you’d still beg me, right. Would ask for me to sit you on my dick all over like some teenager.”

Lance resurfaced. A whore to a moan on his lips. “Oh my—god. Please. Wanna cum on your dick.”

“See. Slut. It’s all about you,” he teased.

And this  _had_ to be a cheat, a glitch in the matrix, a red comet in the midnight sky, one in a billion, the impossible made possible; but Lance sometimes could look at him and obliterate him— and he did so, dismantling Keith and reassembling his body better than before.

“You’re right so how about you do your job,  _alpha_. Unless you can’t,” Lance challenged, lips crooked in a shit eating smile.

“Wow.”

“Did I hit a nerve?”

Keith popped his fingers out, wrapped them around his cock, and pressed it to Lance’s entrance as he husked, “Tell me to fuck you again.”

“What, did you forget what we’re doing or is it that you like when I beg for it?”

“Lance.”

“Oh so it’s okay to bust my balls. Don’t worry, baby, I want you at all hours. Now fuck me. I wanna get filled.” 

 “Want you. Want you so bad.”

“Yea. Show me, baby. Make me feel it.”

  He dragged the head of his dick up and down Lance’s hole, pushing his cock in him just enough so Lance gasped at the feeling.  “Feel that? It’s all for you. I’m so fuckin hard just looking at you.”

“Put it in me, Keith. Lemme have it.” Lance spread his legs.

Keith pressed his dick in, going in as easy and wet as the last, yet it was better than the last. Hotter than the last. Sweeter. Hands drew Lance into a kiss. Drank each breathy gasp, each slutty whine as he pumped in and out. Felt  _fire_ in his heart and lungs as he consumed Lance’s voice through biting kisses. Nails clawed out. Toes curled in the sheets. Dark fingers slotted in his, squeezing for support, for touch. Sweat ran where their bodies rutted madly.

It was sex but not sex.

Making love but not love.

Connecting.

Binding.

Tethering a vessel to the pier.

Inking, his scent, his presence, his energy as an everlasting tattoo on Lance’s dark body.

Mating wasn’t sex.

It wasn’t making love.

It was a—

Anchor

Tether

Tattoo

Scar

Stamp

No one told you sex could make you cry; it can.

Keith nuzzled the sweat-slick skin of Lance’s neck, eyes shut with a scorching sting, hands scared to relinquish their grip on the omega’s hip as they climaxed again.  Drove his cock madly again and again, moaning at Lance who didn’t shy from his brutal nature, from the fact that Keith was practically holding him still so he could fuck all his cum deep inside.  In fact, Lance melted against him, sloppy and pretty, a vocal thing as he arched and rocked back onto Keith’s cock, whimpering at the cum slicking inside of him.

Lance turned his head, lips red and seeking. Pathetically bumped his mouth to Keith’s in a poor form of a kiss but Keith corrected it. Taught Lance how to move them messy and right.

 “Keith,” he said in a voice harsh and dark like whiskey; it rippled warm shivers down Keith’s spine.

Keith brushed his lips over Lance and licked inside, unable to withstand any distance between them, unable to hear his voice without feeling he would crumble into dust, unable to see his eyes drunk and hazy because of him, unable to think further beyond the wet sensation of his cum and Lance’s slick on his cock.

There were dangerous words floating in Keith’s mind. Words Keith felt for a while but thought to give a voice to them invited a tragedy as well. Silly, yea; he couldn’t tempt faith. Wouldn’t.

He showed Lance again in his kisses to his mouth and face, in his hands brushing tenderly down his sides and neck, in the body spooning Lance protectively, in the legs that he tangled around Lance’s, in his scent as he buried him with pheromones proudly declaring  _mine mine omega omega mate mate_.

Then wondered privately to himself as Lance drifted to sleep, flaccid cock still stuffed inside, if there was a crisis going on upstairs with God and the angels because a piece of heaven just fell on his lap.

Hope not, he thought, cause this piece would remain on earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're almost done and i got some decent WC on my new VLD project, 11k and I'm still writing the damn prologue. 
> 
> thanks to everyone here and on tumblr for the support and messages, i sweat i'll get back to you once i have the time!
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp


	11. Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

Keith looked in the mirror. He wore his blues this morning for the first time in weeks. His gun weighed heavy on his body, personal knowledge attached to the barrel and the mag.

Lance walked in and hugged him from behind and perched his chin on his shoulder. He smelled wonderful. Like their sheets, their mixture of sugar and smoke. Brown hair stuck in every direction. Radiant eyes sleepy.  Two of everything lined the house now— toothbrushes, cologne {though Lance often dipped into Keith’s, a fair trade since he had the habit of wearing Lance’s long shirts when the omega wasn’t home), food, clothes, and fabric softener.

So they’re officially gross now.

They’re not the two people chasing one another and sending furtive glances in social gatherings.

They’re the after. The boring. The section movies skipped or made a joke off now, the old couple. If Keith went out for the week’s groceries then his mate was with him and joked about the prices or the models on the ads. If Lance had another family get together then his mate joined him, less out spoken compared to the omega but never an ounce out of love.

Their eyes rarely stray. Their hands knew the route to one another. Some days they looked less than sex appeal. Maybe a pimple or two. Or a cold. But damn it, if they weren’t stunning to each other, perfect in their imperfection.

He turned his head, found Lance waiting for his mouth, and kissed Lance with everything he had. All the sweetness, all the lust, all the faith, all the trust, all his adoration. Lance paid it back equally.

“Nervous, baby?” Lance asked in a voice coarse and unused from sleep; a deep and rumbly sound

Keith watched their twins in the mirror. “A little.”

When he came home this day, he would be returning to a family. His family. His omega. His mate. The thought filled him so fast and fully.

How lame, to be excited to buckle down and go home to his family.

“You’ll be careful right,” Lance said. His hand traced formless patterns on the chest of his uniform, the gesture comforting.  Keith could fall asleep from it which he did on the days and nights they had to each other with his head pillowed on Lance’s chest or lap, his brown fingers combing his hair from his face, rubbing his scalp.

“Coran’s putting me on desk duty for today,” Keith assured him.  He took the hand creating shapes and slotted their fingers, bringing it up to kiss the back of Lance’s hand.

Lance copied him; maneuvered his hand so he could plant one as well. Dick, always having to keep up the score. “I mean after.”

After

_When I’m on the field._

_When I have a gun in my hand and one pointed for my weak points._

“Yea. I got to. Have an omega to watch over.”

“I’ll let you think that, alpha. Now, go knock them dead, baby.”

“Before I leave, you cooking?”

“Haha, what. Do you have a request?”

“Well those tacos with cheese?”

“Quesadillas? I’ll get some cheese from the store after work.”

“Thanks.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

The precinct doors shut behind him, sunlight from the outside pooling in through the glass panels as his form shadowed on the floor. He hadn’t seen these doors, floors, and walls for months. Forgotten about the chatter of his unit as he walked through the sliding elevator door, the wisecracks made in honest jest, the laughter, the noise made at the desk from filing reports, answering calls, and skimming through case files.

He sat at his desk without ceremony. No wish to draw a huge commotion over his return; Keith liked the attention to a degree and the line ended at people singing him happy birthday and reunions.

And that made his luck shitter because this unit thrived on brotherhood, on the celebration, on teamwork— another family in addition to his flesh and blood and rapid budding relationship with Lance— and you couldn’t expect to give your life and blood for the force without so paycheck. Without some comeuppance.

So the rushing silence. The standing ovation. His brothers and sisters in blues hollering his name, clapping his back, telling him _it’s good to have you back, man_.

That was part of being a family.

Part of being an officer.

Part of being a hero whether you caught the bad guy or not.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

The celebration was short lived but the paperwork wasn’t; courtesy of Coran who shook Keith’s shoulder and hauled a shivering stack of paperwork.

“Missed you. But you did act like an asshole and almost died so you’re a desk jockey for now,” he had said and walked back into his office, grin wide beneath his rust-red mustache, as dread paralyzed Keith in his chair.

Five hours, two paper-cuts, and a bouncing leg tempted Keith to ditch the paperwork and speed off in a cruiser. His cell buzzed with a text message.

 

_Lance_

_I know, baby! It just for now. You can be Keith-man all you want once the doc clears you_

_Keith_

_We fucked for three days. If I can handle nonstop sex I can manage a patrol_

_Lance_

_Be good or no sex_

_Keith_

_I’ll get back to work_

_Lance_

_Lol. Too easy. See you later babe_

 

Too easy, huh.

If he thought about it Lance made all this easy: crushing, chasing, falling, domesticating. No need for a lure. For the tranquilizer dart.

_Am I easy or are you hard not to bend for?_

A blade of grass suffering a strong wind.

Rocks polished and smoothed by slapping tides.

Timber clad in wisps of smoke and yellow tongues.

He read the text again, hiding it under his desk between his legs, then typed out—

 

_Keith_

_Easy for you._

 

_Lance_

_Loser._

_Lance_

_Get back to work. Can’t focus when I’m thinkin about u._

He locked his phone, pocketed it, flipping open the next file as a grin wedged on his face and a nuclear glow in his heart.

_We’re so easy; why did we think for a second we wouldn’t happen._

 

 

[x]

 

 

A solid minute of silence passed from the point of Keith opening the door, hanging his jacket and keys, to tugging the fridge open and squinting at the bright light hitting his eyes before he heard Lance.

“Freeze, bud.”

Keith grabbed a beer and kicked the door closed, assuming this was a little play before sex as he turned, his mind supplying all the ways to bend Lance over the counter, the sofa, the bed. So Keith wasn’t expecting Lance to use the play in foreplay quite literally.  “Oh. My. God. Lance?”

“That’s Officer Nasty to you,” Lance said in tiny navy shorts— like itty bitty boy shorts— a navy button down with his entire chest and stomach exposed and a cheap police hat. He thought to borrow Keith’s spare utility belt and holstered the slots with useful shit like lube, condoms, and a dildo.

Keith had no idea what to do with himself. “Where the fuck did you get that, Spencer’s, Party City?”

“This is my uniform cause I’m a policeman.”

Well, _of_ _course_ , how silly of Keith to question otherwise.

“So standard booty shorts and an unbuttoned shirt.”

“You sassing me, boy?” Lance swaggered like a man with an iron on hip and gold on his chest. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and said somberly, “I oughta take you downtown.”

“We never say that. Ever. What shows do you watch?”

Determined to play this game to completion, Lance said next. “Sir, you’re in violation of…code 97.”

Keith snorted into his palm. “Wow. You are so bad at this.” His mate waited, expectant; did he really want Keith to— “God, you want me to play along, fine. What’s code 97?”

“Fine as fuck without a permit,” Lance grumbled in a nicotine voice, a hotter imitation of those old black and white crime films with an overworked and devoted detective.

Aside from the amateur porn worthy lines, Lance flat out _murdered_ in those tiny shorts and poorly buttoned shirt. Brown and tall.  Blue eyes _undressing_ Keith. Smile appraised for millions.  A slender chest diving _hard_ into a neat trail of a brown pubic hair and a V. Goofy and gorgeous in a trade mastered by Lance alone.

 Smart on Keith that he’d already bonded, mated, and shared a place with the guy cause if he hadn’t before he would do so now in a heartbeat.

“Oh god,” he groaned, shutting his eyes from sheer embarrassment at the rehearsed line.

“I’m cuffing you.”

Oh, so no rights?

_Do not give him shit about cop procedure._

_Do not._

He set his beer on the counter and pressed his wrists together in a mockery of an arrest. Then he saw the flash of silver in Lance’s hand. Cold metal closed around both wrists. “Wait.  Are those my handcuffs?”

Lance flushed and said as his cool cop façade dissipated. “I couldn’t find any at the store, shut up.”

“You have the key, right?” Keith asked, nervous.

“Um.” Not the answer he was hoping for.

“Lance,” he hissed.

“They’re in the house somewhere,” Lance dismissed with a careless wave of his hand.” Stop killing the mood.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Now play along. Go on,” he encouraged.

“Fine. Oh officer, what can I do to change your mind?” Keith deadpanned.

“Dude,” he propped his hand on his hip. “ Seduce me. Don’t be a dick.”

“Sorry, the shorts are so tight. I can’t take you seriously.”

In an effort to look serious Lance crossed his arms over his chest which only served to bring Keith’s attention to his slender chest and brown nipples. “Do you want hot sex or not?”

He stared, swelling up as he thought about cuffing Lance and eating him out until he cried. “Well, duh.”

Lance snapped his fingers. “Then seduce me or go sexless for the night.”

“You said that last time, remember? Then you saw me get into the shower and forced yourself on my dick.”

The omega snorted. “Oh force? Really, so you were just hard for no reason.”

“I was hard because _you_ were bending over everything in the house,” Keith pointed, cufflinks clinking. “And now I’m hard again because you’re a little pervert, dressing like a cop. Cuffing me. You wanna get fucked, officer? Feel how good it is when you bend the rules. C’mon. I won’t tell.”

Lance jerked him by the cuffs, palming Keith’s ass through his jeans as he backed Keith into the fridge. Keith hissed, spine protesting at the magnet currently digging into the flesh there but he was too c _aught up_ in Lance, in his body pinning Keith like a possession, in his mouth nibbling and brushing unsteadily like someone had a mouth on _him_ , in the hands telling Keith they would leave bruises for him in the morning, in the little bit of alpha mixed up in Lance who played when the omega was aggressive and wild.

Didn’t get a breath for a minute, then did, and panted heavily.

Saw that _hard_ look in Lance’s eyes and shivered in response cause it was a _bad_ look.

“You’re about to be _under_ me, bad boy.”

Keith snorted against his lips, no less deterred, no less enraptured.   “Stop using porn lines.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Lance found the key to the handcuffs and freed Keith.

He rubbed the red indentations around his wrists.

“See. I told you,” Lance said, dangling the key. “In the house.”

“So roleplay, huh?”

“Well it was supposed to be a joke but I thought it would be kinda sexy to fuck and cuff you. Was it weird?”

Keith tossed the cuffs and key on the nightstand and flicked the light off, rolling the sheets back for him and Lance to snuggle under,  Lance nestled into his side. “Nah. We should use the cuffs again. Maybe ones for sex though.”

“So does this mean I can call you _Officer Kinky_?” He asked, illuminated by the moon in the dark of the room.

“No sex. For a week.”

“Dude,” Lance laughed, turning his face into Keith’s shoulder. He felt Lance smiled against his skin. “You’re so bogus.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

“Lance,” Allura snarled as she double checked the lists of songs for the DJ to play at the reception. “Stop writing in _Deep Throat_ and _Candy Shop_.” She uncapped a pen and scratched out the name with ink.

Shiro stilled her, voice measured with reason.  “Leave _Candy Shop_.”

“We are not dancing to that. My whole family will be there. Your family will be there. We are classy people, Shiro, classy people don’t grind to 50 Cent.”

“It’s symbolic. We started with it so we should end with it.”

 “Shiro, you’re a romantic guy,” Lance said.

“Thank you, Lance.”

“Seriously are you two getting married, no, so shut up. Don’t worry about the list. Gabby and Shay are helping. You guys need to get fitted for a suit. ”

Keith and Lance snickered when Shiro wailed in agony, his head hung in submission at the reminder.

“Sucker,” the couple chanted.

Allura silenced them with a stare, sucking all the laughter out of their souls when she said dryly. “That means you two, dumbasses. And Hunk, make sure he goes. He’s been dodging me. Why are you even complaining?”

“For the last time, we’re not that type of gay. Damn, woman,” Lance whined. “We don’t watch _Yes To The Dress_ until the game is over. Right, babe?”

“Yup. Balls first then fashion,” Keith agreed with his mate.

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Those shoes you’re wearing total clash with your top. There. It’s embarrassing. Get your shit together, Allura.”

“Shame.” Keith shook his head, tsking.

“Stop tag teaming me!”

Keith smiled, so indulgent with Lance around him. “First time a girl ever said that to me.”

The table rattled when Allura plopped her head on it. She knew a losing battle when she saw one and no force out there could outmatch Keith and Lance’s teamwork. “Ugh.”

Shiro tipped his head back and rumbled with laughter.

“Shiro!” Allura swatted him across the bicep with the list of songs, earning a deeper chuckle out of Shiro as he shielded himself from the assault, a grin marking laugh lines on his face.

“Baby you look lovely,” he defended over the whacks of paper. “I love you with good taste or bad taste.”

“Sounds like someone doesn’t want his dick sucked during our honeymoon,” she snipped.

The smile beaming on Shiro’s face promptly morphed into an austere line of a man with limited options. “Okay, guys you gotta be nice to my beautiful wife.”

“Whipped,” Lance shooked his head grimly. Admiration for the guy gone in an instant.

“God. You used to be cool, Shiro,” Keith said then lovingly cupped his mate's cheek and pressed his lips over Lance’s with the delicacy of a feather and enough affection and love to inspire Nicholas Sparks’ next book.

Shiro pursed his mouth, mocking, like _do you not see the irony, you two gigantic idiots._ “Right. I’m whipped. Not you two.”

“Glad you can admit, bro.”

“I was being a smartass. Shouldn’t you know the difference, Sass Lord?”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Walking out from the changing room, Lance adjusted the knot of black silk at his collar, unused to the light pressure that the tie issued against his throat. Hunk opened the curtain next, buttoning his blazer. They looked at their reflection in the mirrors lined on the wall.

“I feel like James Bond in this.” Lance twirled, throwing the fishtail of his blazer behind himself.

“We’re classy bitches now.”

“Yes we are, bro. “

Keith drew the velvet curtain back, the metal ringlets hissing across the metal rod.

From the way Lance’s face smoldered with sex, Keith figured the suit had a sleek fit on his body. One flickering peek at the mirror showcased where the fabric bulged around his bicep and thighs. He filled out nicely after returning to actual active duty and weight training from his three-month recovery yet he wasn’t the showstopper in this room, Lance was. Full on _murdering_ in his suit.

Lance stuffed one hand languidly into his front pocket, sucking on his lower lip. “Of all the fitting rooms you walked into mine.” He cocked a smile packed with fire and explosives. “ Sup, name’s Lance and I got a weakness for guys with bitch face and big dicks.”

Hunk made a sound of disgust. “Right here, Lance, I did not leave.”

“Keith,” the alpha introduced, choosing to ignore Hunk’s increasing moans of agony as he checked Lance head to toe with no pretense of restraint. Fine on all accounts, damn, son. “I have a weakness for slutty guys who can take big dicks.”

“Still here!”

“You’re in luck. I’m a slut.”

“I’m thick.”

“I’m forever scarred from this point on. Shiro, please hurry up.”

Shiro emerged from his dressing quarters.

Lance whistled. “ _Aye, papi_.“

“Well if Allura decides to pull a Julia Roberts you can use the suit to pick up chicks.”

“I look good?” Shiro asked.

“Okay you’re fishing now,” Keith called out.

“I’m nervous,” he argued.

“We all became a little gayer when you walked out, Shiro. Except for Keith, because that would be weird. You’re on fire bro. Allura is porking you all night.”

“Quick question,” Hunk interrupted, garnering everyone’s attention. “Anyone else feeling like we should hit up a club like this?”

Lance made a sound of childlike glee and clapped. “Hunk, you’ve got a beautiful mind. But let’s go further. Let’s go to Vegas.”

Hunk gasped, touching his fingers to his mouth. “You’re the best brother ever.”

“No, man you are.”

“Alright. I’ll take it.”

“No, no. You’re supposed to insist I’m the best, not take it.”

Shiro jumped in. “We’re all taken men, what can we do there?”

“Gamble, go to a strip club,” Keith listed. “Buy drugs.”

Shiro furrowed his brows, then started with a kind voice. “Did you forget you’re a police officer?”

“I mean, like not _in_ Vegas. So…”

“We are not going to Vegas to gamble, see strippers or buy coke,” Shiro declared officially.

Lance sighed, “We would buy weed. Not coke. What’s wrong with you, Shiro?”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Air rushed past his mouth. The weight of the Kevlar vest slammed down his body, tugging strongly on his shoulders, pavement blurred into grayness under his feet. October’s chill seized the air. Yellow, red, orange leaves danced in circles as they lost their strength and plummeted to the ground. Static spat from the radio clipped on his hip.

“ _Keith. Still hot on our target?”_ Pidge’s voice was distorted from radio squawk.

Keith grabbed the top of the fence and threw his legs over the chain, unclipped the radio once he had his feet pounding beneath him and cold air burning his lungs. “Yes. I’m on him. Heading toward 67th.”

“ _Bringing the car there. Let’s cut him off_.”

“Got it.”

The alpha juked to a sudden stop, ditched the side streets and sprinted down an alley.

Keith snapped into the radio. “Alley. Cut him off!”

An unmarked Charger pulled into the alleyway. Keith saw the splash of orange coming out of the driver’s side, Pidge rounded the door, hand falling for the black butt of her handgun as she approached. The alpha skidded to a stop, falling on his ass briefly before he bounced up and tried to blitz for the low fence of a backyard.

Keith fisted the back of his shirt and jerked the alpha off before he could mount the fence.

“Knife!” Pidge shouted.

Light reflected off the short blade, glaring a beam of sunlight into Keith’s right eye, as the alpha punched the knife out, gunning fast for the officer’s face.

His hand closed around the alpha’s wrist, stopping the tip an inch from his nose as the impact rippled down his arm. Keith exhaled, heart a sledgehammer in his ear. Close. So close.

Pidge shot to his side with her handgun drawn. She sighted the alpha and growled out low, “Drop the knife. Now.”

Metal scraped the cement.

Keith un-bent his fingers cautiously; he didn’t permit the fear in his stomach to fill his mind. “Hands on your head, asshole.”

“Pat him down,” Pidge said. “I got him.”

Keith felt the alpha’s side and chest. He checked his legs and found a bulge protruding out from the stretch of his sock. He rolled his pants up and pulled out a package of coke.

“Look at that.” Keith showed her, estimating the weight in his mind.

Pidge smiled. “Oh man. You are so fucked. We have you now.”

“It’s not mine.”

“Right. You’re in Galra country and you happened on a nice brick of snow.” Keith wrenched his hands behind his back and clicked the cuffs on the alpha.

“Maybe he’ll feel chatty at hold up. Big Eddie’s there. Alphas always talk with Big E.”

The alpha’s eyes widened. “Who’s Big Eddie?”

“The guy you’re probably going to get real talkative with. Call it in, Pidge.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Lance charged him the second he slid the lock home, he nuzzled his chest and coiled his arms around his back before Keith could ask what happened. “Baby?”

“I need this.”

Oh; Keith stroked his hair. The stern nature in Lance’s voice. The punishing grip crushing him. The inability to look him in the face.

_He felt it. My fear. The brief chance of death_.

Guilt pelted him like a heavy rain. One job, man, don’t scare the mate. What Keith shoved off as another Thursday afternoon, Lance registered as the end of days, as the time Keith ended up in the ER with a bullet in his stomach and blood gushing out the wound.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean for you to—“

“Shut up,” Lance said with his scent curled and scared like a child.

“Alright,” he said.

Not a word was spoken.

Not about the way Lance trembled, a leaf in a breeze.

Not about the awful, awful, painful hitch he made before slow tears soaked into the fabric of his shirt.

Not about how wonderful it was that this person, this beautiful person who brightened the days and nights of his life, cried whenever he suffered a cut, suffered an almost connecting bullet, suffered the sniffled.

Not about the fact that this moment in the dimness of their home, in the silence of the Chicago night with its distant wailing sirens and rushing cars, justified his decision in ordering that engagement ring a week ago.

_Omega_

_Baby_

_Alpha’s_

_Here_

_Alpha’s_

_Here_

_Alpha’s_

_Staying_

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Keith barreled through the front door of their apartment, hands on the zipper of his fly, and declared rather loudly and passionately. “I want sex. Pants off. Ass up.”

Shiro was stunned with horror in their living room. The couch and coffee table was moved to the side of the room to broaden the space for activities. Name of said activity— dancing.

“What are you doing here?” Shiro asked, dressed in flexible shorts and a muscle tank.

“I’m here for sex. What are _you_ doing here?”

“I’m here for dancing lessons.”

“Class is canceled. Lance?” He called into the apartment.

Lance padded with a pep in his step from the bathroom, the flush of the toilet sounding off his arrival. “Keith. The hell, didn’t I tell you I was helping Shiro out today?”

“No. You didn’t.” Did he? Keith scowled at the floor in thought then abandoned the task when nothing worthy came forth. “Look I need ten minutes then you can dance with the stars or whatever.”

“Wow.” Lance put his hands up with a mocking smile. “Marathon man here. You averaged six on a good day. It’s a good number.”

Shiro plugged his ears, an index finger in each channel and eyes pointed upward. “I don’t want to know how last my brother last in bed.”

“I know how long you last. Dare I say color me impressed and mildly terrified.”

“You lasted a minute when we switched,” Keith countered.

“My dick isn’t used to getting ass,” Lance volleyed back. “What’s your excuse Mr. Fill-My-Hole?”

“T.M.I.” Shiro shouted, volume skewed from his impromptu ear-muffins.

“Sorry for getting turned on.”

“We’ll have sex later,” Lance said and made a shooing motion. “I have my work cut out for me here. Shiro is the Carlton of dancers. It’s like he’s allergic to rhythm.”

Still deaf to the world, Shiro hummed Ricky Martin to himself, unheeding Lance’s comment.

“It’s been a week,” Keith complained.

“You guys do it every week?” Shiro asked.

Of course, he heard that part.

Cock blocker.

“Four out of seven days actually. We’ve been busy with work and the wedding and house hunting…Why did I say that? No questions, padawan.”

“Yes, master.”

“Ugh.”

“I told him to call me ‘daddy’ at first but it got really weird y’know since we’re dating each other’s siblings. Master is fine as long as we don’t go too 50 shades.”

“I’m not horny anymore.”

“Then go eat lunch. And I mean real food— don’t say me or my ass. You don’t get any nutrients from my ass.”

“…I’ll go get lunch.”

“Oh my god. You’re a nasty boy, Keith.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this and chapter 12 were supposed to be one whole chapter but then i realized it would be 16,000 words so i separated it. so 4k here and 12k for the next one, lol
> 
> tumblr:pro-derp
> 
> Writing update: I'm 20k into my new klance fic, yay. bad news i have a long way to go before i get near to finishing it.


	12. Chapter Twelve

“How’s the brother?” Lance asked when he met Keith at the rendezvous location or a.k.a the long stretch of hall of the venue. Elegant curls of gold patterned the satin-soft plum carpet lined down the hallways. It snuffed out their footfalls. And it kind of reminded Keith of the infamous hallways scene from _The Shining._

“Depends on how your sister is,” Keith exchanged, cryptic. Both had little freedom to text out the drama conspiring in their respective rooms so this respite served as recon and a little one on one time.

Off topic, Lance was dynamite in his rental suit. Shame it would have to return to the rack. It would be better on their floor.

Okay. He drooled enough. Back to saving the wedding from the two idiots who agreed to get hitched in the beginning.

“Ah,” Lance grinned, knowledgeable. Damn bond slit Keith down the middle, easy to read and inspect. “He’s shitting himself then. Allura too. She broke out her forehead and is convinced it’s a sign that their marriage is doom.”

Keith’s stare was flat. “I don’t think Shiro would care.”

“Yea. I tried telling her but Pidge made a comment that it looks like Europe so Shay is doing damage control. Pidge is from this point excommunicated until further notice.”

“Wow.”

“In her defense, Allura had bad acne in high school.”

“Damn, really?”

“Yea. Cleared up and all but it’s not helping with her cold feet.”

“Shiro keeps misplacing the ring and freaking out that Allura’s gonna take it as a sign he’s not going to be a good husband...I dunno how the fuck he got to that conclusion considering he’s a cop but…” He petered off with a motion as clueless as the statement made him feel. He slid his hands into the front pockets of the charcoal-black slacks on loan. The tails of his blazers rumpled over his wrist. 

He continued, “Hunk’s holding on to it. I’m taking a break. I will forcibly put that ring up his ass if he mentions it one more time.”

“Explains the anger.”

He lowered his eyes, susceptible as Shiro he believed if Lance studied too closely he might pick up on the case in his inner pocket. Being a mate to a cop had its benefits; Lance had developed an observant eye over their time as a couple. He guessed the bad guy in every episode of _Law and Order_ and _CIS_ without phoning Keith for help. “A little.”

Lance didn’t read too deeply into it, going on to say. “I can’t believe the two people who always have their shit together are flipping the fuck out.”

“Yea. Imagine them having a kid.”

“About that…”

Keith joked. “What, are you pregnant Lance?”

“Allura might be.”

“Shit. Let’s not tell Shiro yet. He’ll cry and freak out. I can only micromanage one type of emotional outburst.”

“I know, sweetie, you’re doing so good. Acting like a human being. No one can tell you’re a sociopath on the inside.”

“Was gonna tell you that you looked nice and I want your ass on my plate but I’m changing my mind. You look gross. I think you have cooties or something.”

Lance regarded Keith with a look that was nothing but _seedy_ and _vulgar_ , where innocence went to die a long sensual death. His cock swelled, conditioned to know what that look entailed for it. “We can probably get a quick fuck in one of these rooms.”

“Yea but what about the cum stains?”

Keith could see the precise second logic entered into Lance’s scheme. His smile drooped. “Man you’re always bringing logic into the fun.”

“We’re renting these, remember, unless you wanna be the one who takes the suit to be dry cleaners and explain to the lady why there are white stains all over it.” He shrugged like _it’s up to you, make the call._

Lance considered the floor in thought for a solution, unveiled one when he smiled triumphantly, and said. “We can swallow.”

“I said fuck. I don’t want cum breath for the whole wedding.”

“Dude my ass needs some lube.”

“Since when, geyser?”

A laugh wanted to come but Lance pressed his lips to imprison it. “Ha-ha. I only get that wet when you’re in great form or it’s that time of the month. You’ve been lacking lately, boo.”

“Right, right.” Keith nodded off. “My hand gets all pruney for nothing when it’s up your ass.”

Arousal bled back into Lance’s face. He walked into Keith’s space and husked. “Let’s have sex right now. I’ll get the suits clean or whatever, just bring me that booty.”

Pidge climbed the stairs to the landing and groaned in complaint at the couple pressed to the wall, “Fucking come on you guys. At the wedding. Do you need to be fixed? Also, am I still banned?”

Mood killed, Lance retreated a step back. “I don’t know. Are you still heartless?”

Pidge held her hands up parallel to one another with a large gap in between. “Define heartless.”

 “Go downstairs.” He pointed to the stairs leading back to Hell— the main floor where guests marched in around the stressing wedding planner who buzzed from location to location as she made sure all the pieces were in place.

“C’mon. It’s not big enough to be Europe…probably Florida.” Lance scowled. “Kidding. Kidding…Look it’s big.”

Their heads snapped down the hall where a clink of a door sounded with swishing footsteps. Hunk smiled when he saw the group.

“Sup Hunk,” Lance greeted.

Keith’s stomach weighed with dread. “Shit. What now?”

“Shiro told me to bar all the windows so Allura can’t pull a Lily.”

“A what?” Lance asked.

“From that TV show _How I Met Your Mother_. One of the girls gets married and leaves through the window.”

“That was another girl. She left with Ted,” Lance corrected.

“Listen. I need a break. This is me barring the windows.”

A door clicked opened and shut. Footfalls hushed on the carpet.

Shay wobbled down the corner, glowing and rather large at the belly.  Lance had cheekily called the omega’s pregnancy glow as buttered biscuit. Added weight included, Shay looked as warm and pretty in her lavender bridesmaid’s gown.  

“I need a break,” she sighed.  “Hey baby. Lance. Keith. Pidge. This hallway feels small with so many people in it.”

“Recap, please,” Lance said.

Shay clapped her palms together, drew a breath, and answered. “Well I convinced her not to pop it and cover it with concealer. It’s barely noticeable.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Pidge joked. Life was trouble when two of the closest people in your personal circle were jokers who didn’t see or know a limit.

“Pidge. No,” Shay said firmly like one did when a pet was about to commit treason by pooping on the neighbor’s lawn.

“Pfft.” She cackled. “That has never worked on me. Ask Keith.”

“It’s true. Why do you think she gets written up so often? I tell her no, she tasers someone. Coran yells at us. We go back on patrol and break more rules. Circle of life and all that shit“

Pidge glared, the look in her eyes dry as tumbleweeds in an old Western film. “Oh yes. Just me. Never you.”

“I’m glad you can admit it finally.”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey now,” Lance jumped in and jabbed a thumb at himself. “That’s my job. Sometimes it’s Keith’s. We keep shit fresh in our house. The spice of life.”

“Gross. Don’t talk about crossing swords with me.”

“I forgot. Phallic objects scare you. Your weakness is as bad as Superman’s.”

“You scream every time there’s a spider and a butterfly in the general area,” Pidge snottily commented back.

“I have a deep hatred for things with too many legs and aerial support that don’t meow or bark. It doesn’t make me a wuss.”

Pidge thought contrary to his argument. “It does. Wuss.”

“Don’t make me bring out Big Boy.” Lance swept his hand over his crotch, where _Big Boy_ laid dormant and inactive.

Keith coughed into his hand.

Lance’s head rotated slowly to regard him with a _bitch you did not_. “You sayin’ I’m small?” He asked in a tight tone.

Gay or straight, all couples encountered this voice once or twice in their relationship. It was advised that you trodden mighty light cause under the thin ice was a mammoth beast know as your partner lurking for a false step. A stutter of words. The hesitation in speech.

Backtrack, Keith.

Save yourself.

Did it slip your mind the fact Lance was short of cotton candy sweet and sexy in his suit?

Recover, man.

“What, no, no. It’s just…” Keith scrambled.

“Speak.”

He rubbed the nape of his nape, testing out lightly.  “A safer bet would be Average Boy.”

The level of sass in Lance’s posture— head cocking back, lips puckering— could, correction: should, put his ass in a grave. “So why do you choke?”

“Alright.” Hunk brought a screeching halt to the couple’s conversation. “Let’s be civil and not make gross jokes about our sex lives. We all know too much.”

Lance huffed, put out by the paternal lock on his conversation. “Great he knocks up a chick and he’s Mr. PG-Rating.”

“Baby,” Shay cooed. “Oh my god. You’re getting the dad voice down.”

“I’ve been practicing,” he admitted.

“I hope you’re not talking about the voice you use in bed—“

Hunk hushed him.

“Did you just—“

“Hunk! It’s not fu—“

“Fuc—“

He did it again and again, smiling at each successful hit.

The group applauded, impressed by Hunk’s mastery. Except Keith, who didn’t dare incur his omega’s wrath once more and be deny booty access.

“It’s highly effective,” Pidge narrated.

Lance clamped his mouth shut in an effort to teach everyone a lesson by refusing to speak. To his dismay, the tactic didn’t produce the desired result as everyone chatted on, unbothered.

“You’re a god, Hunk.”

Keith nudged his mate. Lance and flowers shared a few things— they thrived on sunlight and the blue sky and too little of sun and rain caused the petals to wilt, or too little of attention brought a frown on his face.

“C’mon. Don’t be like that. You can talk,” he encouraged.

Lance scowled. Silent. As though a child who was set in their fury and immovable.

The thought never entered how silly it was trying to coax Lance out; being attentive at all hours to the gradual shifts to Lance’s mood, minor or otherwise; feeling like the ground was tipping to the right simply on the account Lance’s wasn’t smiling or brightening the room with his obnoxious laugh.

He sighed, resigned to his fate as alpha to such a silly, petty and temperamental omega. “Do I have to beg?”

Lance dropped his eyes in consideration, brought them up, and nodded.

“Please.”

Lance made a motion for more as a smile grew.

What an asshole.

“Pretty please. Cherry on top,” Keith said with a flat face.

“Miss my voice, baby?”

“No. You look ridiculous pouting.”

“I don’t pout and you missed my voice.”

“And that’s how our five minutes of peace and silence ended,” Pidge said to no one in particular. “Because Keith is whipped.”

“Aren’t you excommunicated? Go away.”

A set of heel clanged up the steps. Gabby carried two Long Islands, one in each respective hand. “Why are you all in the hallway?”

“A better question, what are those and please cover them.” Lance grimaced at the fullness of his sister’s assets.

“Uh.” She looked down her chest. “They’re boobs. Why are you being weird?”

“This is gross. Go back to being flat chested like Pidge. I can’t deal with you looking like Allura at this age.”

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t bring my double As’ into this. They have done nothing wrong to you.”

“I’m eighteen,” Gabby complained.

“Too young. Return them.”

“Ugh. I have to give these to mom and Allura so shut up and move, Breakfast Club.” Gabby shouldered past Lance.

Lance looked back as Gabby rounded the corner, then to the group. “She called us the Breakfast Club, can you believe the nerve of her?”

Pidge smirked. “Can we all guess who the bitchy princess is?”

“Excommunicated,” Lance bellowed in such a state of indignation.

“Don’t do me like that, man. Coran is telling old people stories to Ulaz. I can’t go back there.”

“Then that makes Keith Bender,” Hunk mused out loud.

“I’m not a bad boy.”

“I mean cause the girl and him hook up after the film.”

Suddenly all their phone dinged with notifications. They fished out their cells and read off the text.

Shay and Lance groaned, “Allura’s gonna pop it. We gotta stop her.”

Keith read Shiro’s panicked text.

 

_Shiro_

_I CAN’T FIND THE RING. HELP. ALERT NASA_

 

He traded a flat look with Hunk. “Did he text you about the—“

Hunk nodded. “Yup. Let’s go before he runs off to Walmart to buy a backup ring.”

“I have his wallet. He’s not going anywhere.”

Pidge lingered, looking around Lance down at his screen as he texted back. “Sounds serious. You should bring me along. I’m good in tense situations.”

Lance glanced at Shay for her opinion on re-establishing the lines of dialogue between Pidge and Allura.

She mouthed _I guess_ with an uncertain shrug of her shoulders.

Lance locked his phone and pocketed it in one of the inner pockets in his blazer. He re-buttoned the front and coolly said, “No comments about the size of it. I don’t wanna hear how it looks like the Death Star or the twin brother to the Enterprise’s star fleet.”

Shay glared at him.

“What? I didn’t _say_ it to her. Just to myself and now to you guys.”

“I’m disappointed in you.”

“Wow. Are you taking lessons from my mom cause that was really good.”

“It’s the baby.”

Another collective ding cut their conversation short. In sync, all the members of the bride’s and groom’s unearthed their cells and dipped their heads as they read the screen.

“Okay. Now we have to go,” Lance said. “We‘ll meet on the battlefield, friends.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Shiro practically charged him the minute the door shut behind him, hair ruffled like his hands been through it more than once which Keith would bet on. “The ring.”

“Chill. You sound like Gollum,” Keith said, prying off Shiro’s thick fingers from the fabric of his blazer.

“Look,” Hunk called and lifted the lid on the velvet box cushioning Allura’s gold band. “See. All is well in Middle Earth. The ring is safe from Sauron.”

Shiro walked over to inspect the ring then nodded when it passed the test. He went to relive Hunk of the box. Hunk snapped the top and tucked it into his pocket.

“Hunk.”

Hunk wagged his finger. “You’ll get it when you’re at the altar. Now we’re gonna sit and relax unless anyone else wants to have a mental breakdown.” His eyes landed on Keith.

Keith took notice of his stare. “Why are you giving me that look?”

“You’re not freaking out about popping the question?” Hunk tested.

He scoffed. “I’m not Shiro.”

“Hey,” Shiro pipped up, insulted. ”You— shit. Well let’s see you stay calm and collected on your wedding day.”

Keith said with a snotty voice. “I will. Cause I’m not you. Loser.”

“You don’t even know. The pressure. The nerves. What if I trip? Oh my god what if I dance like a white guy in front of her family? Have you seen a Hispanic wedding? They dance perfectly,” Shiro went on, slumping into the leather of one of the couches in the room.  The leather squeaked under his heavy body. Panic collected on his handsome face all over. Every possible worst case scenario played in his mind as he stared blankly at the floor.

So distraught Shiro didn’t see Hunk and Keith battling with a game of rock, paper, scissor, to decide which of them would take on Shiro’s tenth mental breakdown.

Keith lost, hissing.

Hunk pumped his fist and mouthed _loser_.

Keith dragged his feet over to the couch. He loved his brother but dude, did you want a pep talk from Keith of all people.

“Shiro,” he called.

His brother didn’t blink.

Keith childishly turned to Hunk and pointed at Shiro’s stubborn head bowed in submission. Hunk gave him a thumb up.

Why _thank you_ Hunk for the backup. Keith tried again. “You shouldn’t worry everyone will be too drunk to see you dance so they won’t care that you’re horrible at it. And you’re Korean, by the way, not white. Though I don’t think being white makes you a bad dancer. You’re just horrible cause you can’t find a damn rhythm to save your life”

Shiro perked up with miserable gray eyes, the sound of dejection deep in his voice, “Am I that bad?”

Hunk made a rapid slicing gesture at his neck.

Keith stammered, “What, uh, no. No. I mean…sorta. I’m not any better either, don’t get mad at me. See this is why you’re stressing out. Shut up. Don’t think about anything. ”

“How do I do that?” Shiro asked. Sincerely.

Wow. When did his brother become as melodramatic as his mate?

“I’ll text Lance and ask.”

Hunk made a _aha_ sound across the couch and snapped his fingers in victory, pointing said fingers in an accusatory fashion. “I knew you were nervous.”

Dumbfounded, Keith blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“You always look for an excuse to text Lance or bring up him up in conversation.”

Keith bristled. “This isn’t Sherlock Holmes. Shut. Up.”

“Ah. Now that you’re exposed, you are naturally guided toward anger. Poor child. It’s so dark in there isn’t it?”

Shiro chuckled.

“What the actual fuck are you going on about? Is that a reference?”

“And the next resort, shifting the conversation.”

“I am fine.”

“Are you?”

Keith thought of the shimmering rock in the lining of his blazer; the trip to the jewelers with Pidge and Shiro, the diamonds sparkling under the bright lights as he searched and searched for one as radiant as Lance— and shut up before you give him grief over such a sappy thought; he wanted something _bright_  and priceless as his mate, whatever— and saw one worthy of that slipped on a false finger in one of the cases. Remembered how Pidge and Shiro had approved and assured him it was stunning without breaking the bank. Brilliant while tasteful. Remembered talking to Lance’s mother and father about his plans and whether or not it was a thing to ask the parents for their blessing— he saw it in films and the gesture seemed sincere so why not. Got their blessings and their smiles and warned Keith Lance was a crier, which duh, of course that silly asshole was a crybaby when it came to grand gestures. Like the guy had wept when Keith won a cheap stuff animal at a theme park. So the big question was going to work this guy out; probably make his ass eligible for the Academy Award for Best Performance.

Then he remembered planning and planning all the ways to bring it up. Thought something simple at first like doing it in the lot of McDonald's on their first not date where he and Lance ate nuggets in the car under the rain. He considered staging a fake hospital visit where Lance would rush in thinking Keith got another bullet in him before he remembered how cruel and lifeless Lance looked that time. How he couldn’t hold back the tears or his feelings. How they’d curled in that shitty bed with the machine counting the times Lance made his heart rate skyrocket.

So he needed something memorable. Something brimming with activities that Lance would be no wiser to his scheming. That was when he went to Shiro and Allura about asking during their toast— as long as they were cool with Keith and Lance stealing the spotlight— and received Allura’s wet smile and Shiro’s explosive hug.

Thought all of that and—

Tension, butterflies, nerves, and the egg McMuffin he had on the drive to the venue rumbled thickly in his gut. He pressed the flat of his fist to his mouth.

 “I’m going to be sick.” He ran into the small bathroom, slamming the door, and lifted the seat.

Hunk looked to Shiro as the sound of Keith retching in the bathroom echoed into the room. “See. He’ll feel better once he’s done.”

“I think you made him sick.”

“Say that again and it will be you in there, Shiro.”

A horrid sound cut the air. Painful and chunky. It sounded as though the sound effects from all the _Jurassic Park_ films were being play simultaneously.

Pale as a white sheet, Shiro eyed the door. “Should we…check on him?”

Hunk connected a line of jewels and scored a glittering gem. “Nah. All a part of the process. Oh sweet! I’m close to beating my high score.”

Shiro jerked from his perch when another harrowing sound penetrated through the closed, solid wood door.

“Oh my god. What if he’s dying?”

“Then this wedding got hella interesting. Wait, wait. I’m kidding he’s okay. Don’t make the sad face.”

Shiro threw open the door and immediately shut it, face green with ill and twisted into a cringe. “He’s fine.”

“Nothing got on the suit?”

Shiro breathed carefully through his mouth. “Nope. But he’ll need mouthwash. A whole bottle. And spray.”

“There’s Target a few blocks away. My dad can drive and get it.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Allura faced the mirror.

 Mirror Allura glared right back at real Allura.

Bright baby blue eyes. Dynamite makeup that shadowed her eyelids in rose gold, sparkled highlighter on her model like cheekbones, dabbed a hint of soft blush to the apples of her cheek, and colored her lips in classic beige.  Her platinum blonde hair completed the stunning image she was as it swooped from the back of her head to drape over her shoulder like a sleepy python. The gown, a dazzling shade of pearlescent cream, formed to her curvy frame and enhanced the thinness of her waist to her wide hips and thighs. Her skin glowed as though the sun itself had laid its lip upon each inch of it.  Not a more beautiful bride could be found.

Except one glaring large pimple shattered the image— well in Allura’s eyes; the whole room found her a model ripped straight from a photo shoot. Lance might even indulge the notion that Allura outshined him look wise

“I should pop it.”

The zit did cast a shadow…

Shay wiggled off the sofa and wobbled to Allura’s side, her reflection appearing in the mirror.

 “No,” said real and mirror Shay. “The makeup is done. Do you know how much more noticeable it’ll be if you pop it? The skin will get red and girl, there’s not enough concealer in the world to hide that shit.”

“It looks like it’s breeding,” Allura intoned, lost to Shay’s reasoning.

His mother beckoned Gabby and whispered harshly, “Get whiskey.”

Lance tacked in, “No. Tequila.”

“Do you want her to back out?”

“Fine. Vodak.”

Allura whipped around. “I can hear you. Stop giving me drinks. It’ll make me pee and did you see how hard it was to get in this dress? Imagine the reverse.”

“You wanted a mermaid dress,” his mother said.  “There were plenty of ball gowns but no. ‘Mama, I have to have a mermaid dress. It’s so elegant and sexy.’ Not very sexy now, huh.”

“The ball gowns made me look wide. Which is your fault cause you made me and gave me wide hips and an ass that can’t fit into normal jeans.”

His mother tapped Gabby’s arm. “On second thought, get me a drink. White Russian.”

Gabby nodded. “Okay.”

Lance hollered. “Before you go, errand girl, a drink for the king. A blowjob.”

“Lance,” his mom chided.

“What, I’m not gay enough for this. I need the ammunition.”

“Get him Sex on the Beach,” she answered for him.

“Oh. Okay. Do you want something, Pidge?”

“Me, no,” Pidge said the one person in the entire room at ease. She had her arms tossed over the back of the love seat with her legs crossed. “I’m having a good time watching the show. Thanks, kid.”

 Gabby took to the door at a near run, her dress swooshing with her pace.

Allura confronted the mirror. “It grew.”

Shay sighed, “It did not and—“ She swatted at Allura’s hands when she reached to pick at the bulge. “Girl, do I have to slap you?”

“Wow. It just got very Jerry Springer’s up in here,” Lance commented. “Money on the momma to be.”

Pidge said, “Dunno. Allura’s pretty nasty when she’s riled up.”

“You two are doing nothing to help this.”

“Why am I here? I’m a man. That should eliminate me from the score board.”

“ _Oh my god, why are my children idiots? Where did I go wrong?”_

It was at this crucial moment that grandmother happened to charge inside and said, “ _Jesus, Allura. That’s one hell of a zit. Thought it was the moon.”_

“I’m popping it. Everyone take cover.”

“No!”

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

_Lance_

_So we convinced Allura not to pop the zit_

_But bro. No lie. Its big enough to earn it own zipcode_

_Keith_

_Shiro’s Golluming._

_Might kill him to spare us all_

_Lance_

_THE PRECIOUS!!! LOL_

_Ten minutes!! Then we out this bitch and we can drink and grind all night_

_Keith_

_You can grind. I’m sitting._

_Lance_

_BOO_

_U suck_

_No booty access for the whole night_

_Keith_

_ONE. DANCE_

_Lance_

_=D_

 

 

[x]

 

 

At the altar, Lance stood beside Keith with Hunk and Ulaz filing in after him as they took their positions as Shiro’s groomsmen. The bridesmaids lined on the other side, soft looking in shades of lavender. Shiro faced the door as he waited for his bride to be.  Lance’s family filled one half of the room and Keith’s the other. A track of pearly silk carpeted the path from the start of the doorway, where Shiro and the others had entered, right to the altar. Bouquets of flowers blossomed on either side, a tasteful splash of color in the all eggshell room.

Lance checked Keith’s ass in those tight black slacks— not in a subdued manner, mind you because Lance didn't anything by half measures—, found he quite enjoyed the fat curve of it,  leaned over so his mouth brushed Keith’s ear, then whispered as the wedding score filled the room. “Nice ass.”

Everyone rose from their seats and turned to watch the door.

Keith watched the room with his usual cool eyes. His face didn’t betray the fact that Lance’s lewd come on aroused him. His voice, on the other hand, did and echoed with a ghost of a chuckle. “Thanks.”

Lance looked back at it once more. For the memory, you know. Then dug the point of one of his canines over his lower lip. “Let me hit it, yea?”

Keith made a show of deliberation like that one was a toughie. “Maybe.”

“Tease.”

“Horn dog.”

Hunk didn’t look over, selling the image of an attentive member of the wedding and not a doofus who was trying to hit on his mate during his own sister’s wedding, but he said. “Guys. Right here.”

Ulaz shifted, glanced at his shoes as he tried to mask a grin, then said. “So anyone wanna bet on how quick Shiro’s gonna bring the water works?”

Lance clasped his hands in front. “Dude. A second.”

Shiro, seriously.

Guy was pretty, kind, and tough as nails but he was…what was a polite way of putting it— oh, expressive. He was an expressive man with no reins on his emotion. Like the guy could not watch the beginning of _Hachi_ without his eyes watering and his nose running. Lance, like the rest of the world, politely stuffed it until the end where that sweet, devoted dog waited years after years for his owner…

Keith fiddled with his cufflinks. “Twenty seconds.”

Hunk whispered, “Ten.”

“Fuck. It’s gonna be a narrow one.”

“Time it,” Lance mumbled low.

Shiro was lost to their bet. A telling shimmer danced in his eyes. He exhaled through his nose.

Ulaz performed a sleight of hand and cradled his phone in his palm. “Countdown starts when the bride comes.”

“Ha. Won’t be the last time she comes,” Lance joked

“Lance,” Keith chided as he pinched his side lightly.

“Babe. They’re gonna fuck. Like twenty-four seven. Allura got stuff.”

“I…don’t want to know how you know that. But my boner, gone.”

The omega shrugged, unbothered. “It’ll be back. It’s faithful.”

The doors parted and a moment after Allura walked through with their father. Everyone gasped collectively at the lovely bride. The sheer veil fell over Allura’s face and to the untrained eye, her zit crisis went unheeded. For Lance, it glared since he had the pleasure of staring at it for hours.

Ulaz said, “Starting the clock.”

The groomsmen sneakily gauged Shiro’s expression.

One second

Shiro looked down the track with a fond and sick love face.

“Lance is out,” Ulaz whispered.

“Fuck.”

It was at the twenty-mark that the solid, formidable veneer of Shiro cracked. Water shimmered thinly in his eyes, his palms opened and closed, running over each other for something to do. Their father gave Allura away, allowing her to leave his hand for Shiro’s as he pulled her under the altar. He looked down. The room filled with the noise of everyone folding back into their seat and the music waning like a slow sunset.

Allura smiled, patient as though time and all the demands of today’s world ceased in this moment they developed for each other

Shiro looked up with red-rimmed eyes and an incriminating sniffle. A shine of gloss tracked down either side of his cheek.

His sister dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a gentle fingertip.

Ulaz called it, “Keith won.”

Lance scowled at his mate and whispered, “Bastard.”

The minister glanced between the bride and groom. “Let’s see about getting these kids hitched up.”

The sneaky guy he was, Lance pried Keith’s steepled hands apart and took one hostage. Keith balanced him with his scent and weight. Held his hand with that unchanging grip he had, the one that spoke how he’d never let go. And for the entire ceremony, his grip never did lax.

Didn’t wane.

 

 

[x]

 

 

They’re waiting in the hall just outside the reception room. The bridesmaids and the groomsmen were coupled up in a line with newly hitched couple bringing up the rear.

Hunk and Shay waited before Lance and Keith.

“I didn’t tell you,” Lance said.

“Oh no.”

“It’s not bad per say.”

“Per say,” he repeated.

“At the last minute, Allura said we could pick songs for our entrances,” Lance admitted.

Keith turned, expression muted for Lance to fill in his dread. “What did you pick?”

Lance smiled thick with guilt. “It’s not bad…per—“

“Don’t say ‘per say’.”

“Then I won’t.”

“It’s bad,” Keith decided from reading Lance’s eyes. Mischief gathered there the kind that spoke of hardships for Keith and a hard laugh for Lance. He couldn’t keep the grave nature from his voice. “We’re going to be an embarrassment.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“We’re fucked. My family’s here.”

He probably picked something with a nasty grind and foul lyrics like a song by Iggy Azalea or Ariana Grande…Or worse, the Bieber.

Fuck.

What if they didn’t approve of Keith marrying Lance?

What if Lance said no?

What if he fucked up his proposal and made it a mess compared the earth leveling, _sweep me into your arms cause I’m about to swoon_ proposal Shiro had given to Allura?

Unaware, Lance lazily dismissed his concerns with a flick of his wrist. “Your parents looked chill. I think everything will be fine.”

“We can’t go.”

The doors opened and the line started to move couple by couple with a brief interval of time for each to make their appearance heralded by a song.

Keith rerouted all his weight to his feet so Lance had to step behind him and forcibly press his shoulder into his back and shove him the rest of the way.

“Keith,” Lance panted as he applied another shove.

Keith moved across the carpet half an inch.

Lance dropped and heaved laborious breaths. “Babe. It’s not bad.”

Allura rolled her eyes at their antics. “What is wrong with you guys? Just go.”

 Shiro smiled, face on cloud nine with Freddy Mercury belting out high notes of ecstasy. “Don’t start trouble, Keith.”

Shay and Hunk went in next.

The wedding planner lifted an index finger, telling them to hold.

She turned the knob and waved them in. “Just walk. Don’t run.”

Lance tugged Keith past the door.

The song started as they cut into the room and met with a room full of hoots, whistles, and applauds.

_This is why I’m hot_

_This is why I’m hot_

_This is why_

_This is why_

_This is why I’m hot_

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance returned from the dance floor with an apology beer. He pulled the chair and sat beside Keith who pretty much stared vacantly at the cream table cloth like he could glimmer the future from it.

“So forgiven?” He asked.

He didn’t look at him in response but he knew Lance was sporting a sweet smile; the sheepish one when he unintentionally said or did something to put Keith in a shit mood.

Hunk sipped on red wine. A grimaced passed on his face as he swallowed it down. “Keith. It’s wasn’t bad.”

“I fell. They kept playing the song. Now everyone will associate me with that song,” Keith droned, a shell of a man.

Somehow Keith had managed the impossible in a matter of seconds from the trek at the door to their table and tripped. He had wrenched too hard on Lance’s arm, wishing to escape the limelight as fast as his legs could manage; Lance wanted to…how did he say— savor it. Because he was an attention whore of the worst kind and Keith could sustain eyes on him for so long before his skin itched and his frustration bloomed.

This event led to the next train of thought that, maybe, they were incompatible and he could never be the man Lance would want. Look he couldn’t do a simple walk.

Shay sucked nosily on her straw in the silence that was Keith’s mind wrecking itself with doubt and loathing.

Lance nudged the beer with his knuckle into Keith’s line of sight. It looked, from how Keith saw it, like the beer moved on its own to him. “ _Mi corazon_ , no one is gonna remember and if they do they’re gonna say this ‘man, Lance’s boyfriend was super-hot. I wish I was sucking his dick.’”

“Pidge will remember,” Shay corrected first, then remembered herself and frowned. “I mean… Uh.”

Lance helped her recover by exclaiming loudly, “Pidge isn’t human. She doesn’t count.”

Pidge said from the chair next to him as she chewed on bread and waved the gnawed end, patterned with her dentals, at Lance, “I count. And I will remember and I will tell everyone.”

Hunk smacked his lips as he considered the flute of wine. “This shit tastes nasty but it makes me look so fucking classy. Look. Look.” When everyone diverted their attention from Keith to Hunk, he posed like the actor from all those _Dos Equis_ commercials. 

“Oh. Babe.”

Hunk gave his phone to her and assumed the pose. A dramatic effect hardened his honey eyes and wide jaw.  “Take a picture. I’m putting this on my Facebook.”

Shay tapped on the screen and brought up the camera and got out of her chair to angle the perfect shot. “Almost. There.” Flash blinded the table and spotted their vision with colored dots. “What do you think?”

Hunk hummed as he considered it. Shay fidgeted as she waited in suspense.

 “Another one,” he suggested. “My eyes look weird.”

“Take the damn flash off,” Lance grumbled, still rubbing spots his vision.

Shay snapped the photo and showed the finished product to Hunk.

“Nice. Thank you, baby.”

Keith jolted up and rattled the porcelain glassware and crystal cups. “Sorry. Gotta pee.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

The second Lance’s searching eyes left him; Keith made a slick beeline to Shiro’s table, avoiding detection, and hovered behind his brother’s massive back.

“Shiro,” he whispered.

Shiro turned and sent him a hearty smile that definitely was the result of the half-finished pint of beer and the fact that the nightmare of wedding planning and its entire affairs were finally a thing of the past. “Oh hey, Keith. Enjoying yourself?”

Keith checked the room for Lance. His mate was dancing again with his grandmother and Gabby to Fifth Harmony’s _Work from Home_ ,  looking like his little bombshell even as he comically gyrated and twerked.

 “I can’t do this.”

“Keith.” Shiro touched his arm. “You’re freaking out and that’s normal.”

“He’ll say no.”

“Lance would go to the heart of a spider’s nest if you asked him. He’s not saying no.”

“Then I can’t.”

“Listen Keith, you’re proposing tonight,” Allura butted in abruptly. Hints of the Bridezilla who terrorized the family for months lingered in her blue eyes. “We organized everything for you two. The song number. Teaching you how to dance.”

“I know... It’s just—”

Allura cut him short. “I’m going to be polite about it; propose to my brother or I will kindly remove your nut sack.”

Keith asked his brother. “How much has she had to drink?”

“Nothing, actually, that's kind of weird,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You need to get your wife some liquor in her.”

Puppy love softened Shiro’s face. “There’s that word again. Wife. I love hearing it.”

Allura cooed with him. “Me too. We’re fucking married, babe. You’re my hubby.”

“And you’re my wifey.”

They were so…domesticated, he realized, domesticated and utterly gross with their pre-honeymoon sex.

“I don’t think I should get married if this is the end result,” he commented.

Allura’s head snapped to him like a snake hearing a rat scurrying through the underbrush. “Shut up, scrub.”

Shiro placed a hand on top of his wife's and caressed it. “What my sweet wife is trying to say is…do it or we’ll punch you in the balls for making us put all this work in at the last minute.”

“Perfect. Husband. I swear. I’m glad I took you off the market. Now I just need to get you chubby so no one tries to start an affair with you.”

Shiro coughed. “Wait, what?”

“Yea. You get fat. You don’t leave.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re getting fat. You’ll have an affair before me.”

Allura flicked her wrist. “Babe. I’m not that pretty.”

“Allura, you’re stunning. I don’t know how I convinced you—“

“This is giving me acid reflex and I’m not old enough to have acid reflex. That’s how gross you guys are. Stop.”

“Jelly.”

“I’m leaving.”

 

[x]

 

 

Keith pulled the chair out and slumped down. “Where’s Lance?”

Pidge watched the center of the room where a good portion of the guests danced and mingled on the hardwood floor. “There. Dancing like its 2008. I would talk shit but Coran is doing the whitest version of the shuffle right now. I won’t even touch on Shiro’s…uh dancing if you could call it that.”

The women and a few of the men on the floor screamed when _Cha-Cha Slide_ started on the speakers.  People shuffled into rows and danced to the instructions. Of course, Lance was at the front and killing it with his brother and sisters. Shiro attempted to follow with Allura and the others. 

The velvet box sagged in the inner pocket of his blazer as a constant reminder. A physical thing pulling invisible strings on his heart as he watched Lance, happy and bright, with his family , with Keith’s.

_I gotta do it._

_I gotta ask._

Keith lowered his hands between his legs, looking at the glimmer of the light as it reflected off the black leather of his shoe. “I kinda need—“

“A pep talk?” Pidge asked. The kind thing was she wasn’t turning in her seat to talk. Continued watching the guests as they added volume to the music from the DJ with their chatter and the scrape of metal on their dinner plates.

She said, “I got you. You love Lance. Lance loves you. We had to endure you two pretending like you didn’t want to bone each other and then we had to endure you two being that gross _we just started dating_ couple. Then on to the _we’re fucking on every surface_ couple. You guys needs to leave that stage now and get on Shiro’s boring _we’re married and we go to Home Depot on our Saturday nights and sometimes we stay up super like at ten instead of nine_ stage.”

“Very specific.”

“I’ll say this once and never again. If you bring it up, I’ll deny it. Probably murder you in your sleep but… You guys are cute and make my gay ass wanna settle down and have a white picket fence and love handles. There. I’m done. The next time I say something that nice will be at your lame wedding with that doofus. Now make sure there’s a wedding.”

He lifted his head, seeing Pidge’s profile. She dolled up a bit for the big night, nothing too special or wild as she had little familiarity with cosmetic but eyeliner made a sharp black line on her upper lid while a layer of foundation concealed the small scuffs she’d earned two weeks ago from vaulting a fence and striking her footing poorly. He had laughed hard because it was a move he'd pulled off several times and it was instantly apparent that Pidge was trying to pick up the trick.

“Wow.”

She turned this time. “I will get my gun.”

“Your heart grew three times its size today.”

“I’m telling Allura.”

“Whatever. Lance will protect me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ew.”

“I feel like throwing up,” he confided.

“Hunk said you puked earlier. But you’re feeling it again, do it before the toast.”

“He told you! What the fuck.”

“Well Shiro mentioned it and Hunk elaborated. They thought the award worthy sound effects from _Alien_ was locked in the bathroom with you.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

“Sup, _corazon_ ,” Lance greeted, slumping bodily in the chair. Sweat beaded his forehead. Laugh lines wrinkled the sides of his mouth. He glowed, a sun compartmentalized and packed under his dark skin. “Feeling alright?”

Keith filled a cup with water and handed it wordlessly. Not a lick of it having to do with their bond but knowledge that Lance was mindless about little things like keeping his ass hydrated.

“Thanks,” he gulped the entire glass in one swallow. “So you still all traumatized by your stumble?”

“If I do the math, it’s technically your fault.”

“And I said I was sorry.”

“Yea. After you laughed.”

“You made a funny face.” Lance touched his chest, saying sincerely with an incriminating grin and rubies for his lips, “I had no control over my body.”

The dancing died down when the food came out. Most of the kids and preteens stomped around while everyone chowed down. Lance dogged all his share and Keith didn’t feel an ounce of annoyance when his fork wandered over to his plate for seconds. Pidge minded, a lot.

She hissed and hunched her body over the plate. “Fuck off. This is mine. Go eat dick or something.”

Lance propped his elbows on the table. “You heard her, Keith.”

“No. Your breath will smell like cum the whole night. I hate cum breath.”

He gestured loosely at the air. “Then spit, my god.”

Hunk set his fork and butter knife down. “Lance.”

“Sorry, Disney Channel. I’ll whisper so you can keep your PG rating.”

“Spitting means running to the bathroom,” Keith insisted. “My jaw is sore by then. I don’t want more work.”

“We can have a spit cup.”

“No.”

“This is not whispering. I’m eating mashed potatoes, Lance, white stuff. Do you get me?”

“Hunk, don’t sexualize mashed potatoes. Sicko.”

“Someone punch him.”

“No one punch him.”

“I’m just trying to have a nice conversation here and I get attack. That’s fucked.”

“I think cum breath isn’t as bad as going down on a girl who hasn’t washed. Right, Hunk?”

Shay cocked her head, gaze severe and laced with a promise— no, a lifetime guarantee of sexless nights and passive-aggressive comments whenever they ate dinner while they watched reruns of _Will & Grace_. “Do not agree.”

Hunk wiped his mouth with a napkin, closed it neatly over the table, and diplomatically declined. “I have no comment.”

Pidge wagged her brow.  “Keith knows what’s up.”

“The next dish isn’t fish, right?”

“I know what’s up,” Lance messily added.

Keith and Pidge jolted forward, surprised by their laughter, and howled. They smiled at one another once it passed.

 “That’s funny.”

“Like his ass has any idea what a vagina looks like.”

Half eaten plates catered away, the noise in the venue dimmed once Shiro rose and took a mic from Emilio. “Now before we start the toast and you all find your best ways to embarrass me and my wife—yes Lance I am talking about you— I want to thank you all for coming. I know the open bar had something to do with the turn out. I want to thank my family for coming all the way here and to Allura’s family for treating me no different.”

The mic went around. Passing from family members to friends and coworkers. Tearful speeches. Heartwarming ones. Stuttering one where you could tell the person hadn’t given much thought into what they would say. To ones where the entire room erupted in laughter and the newlyweds bowed their head in humiliation— like Keith had to say who was that was. Then the mic went to him.

Keith moved his chair back. From across the room, Shiro and Allura looked on with encouragement.

“I’m not any good with this but…I’m happy for you. People don’t really get that Hollywood love but maybe you two lucked out or something. You deserve it, man…It was hard being your brother cause you set the bar high and I followed you. You knew the right path and I wanted to be like you in a way. When you joined the force so did I. When you got that nice Charger, I had to get a Mustang. When you started wearing high tops, I wore them too until I realized how much of a tool I looked—“ The room bubbled with giggles. Lance’s was the loudest.

 “When you shaved half your head, I did too. Then no one could tell us apart so I grew it back. Now you’re married and I’m…Imma copy you one more time, bro, if that’s cool with you?”

Lance stared, mouth dropped as the weight of Keith’s word sunk in.

Keith reached for the lining of his inner pocket and slipped out the box.

Lance searched his face then noticed the box and slapped a hand over his eyes.

“Hey you have to look at me,” Keith said, taking the knee. “Lance.”

Lance shook his head and sniffed.

“Man I’ve been planning this for a while, don’t let my work go to waste. You know I don’t plan shit through for anything.”

Pidge patted Lance’s back and whispered something private into his ear. Lance nodded and surfaced from his hiding spot and faced Keith with redness in his eyes.

“This isn’t romantic but I threw up today because I was so nervous to ask you this.” Keith tucked his lower lip into his mouth. Chewed it with teeth and popped it back out, swollen and bruised from the treatment. “I didn’t think people got this. I didn’t think I would but I have it and…I want to keep having this. With you. I want the whole trip, Lance. Take it with me, yea?”

Tears ran down Lance’s cheek. “Y-yeah.”

Keith wiggled the ring free from its cushiony pillow and held his palm out wordlessly for Lance.

Lance swiped at his eyes first and then placed a hand into Keith’s.

Keith popped the ring on.

Lance laughed, wetly. “It’s big.”

“You’re used to big packages so….I have one more thing for you.” Keith got to his feet. “Yo. DJ.”

“We’re dancing?”

“I said I give you one right. Let’s tear it up.”

 

_Sí, sabes que ya llevo un rato mirándote_

_Tengo que bailar contigo hoy_

_Vi que tu mirada ya estaba llamándome_

_Muéstrame el camino que yo voy_

_Tú, tú eres el imán y yo soy el metal_

_Me voy acercando y voy armando el plan_

_Solo con pensarlo se acelera el pulso_

Keith led, Lance moving his hips like a hypnotist— the rhythm easy for him to capture and command— and smelling like honey and the salt in the air by the sea.

Keith spun Lance away and snapped him back to his chest, the rock on his ring finger twinkling bright, eating all the light in the room. Eating. Eating. Like Lance right now, eating Keith up.

Eating the music.

Eating the moment.

Eating Keith’s love.

 

_Si te pido un beso ven dámelo_

_Yo sé que estás pensándolo_

_Llevo tiempo intentándolo_

_Mami, esto es dando y dándolo_

_Sabes que tu corazón conmigo te hace bom, bom_

_Sabes que esa beba está buscando de mi bom, bom_

_Ven prueba de mi boca para ver cómo te sabe_

_Quiero, quiero, quiero ver cuánto amor a it e cabe_

_Yo no tengo prisa, yo me quiero dar el viaje_

_Empecemos lento, después salvaje_

 

 

 

Two years later

 

 

The single warning given to Keith that he was not alone in the shower was the swish of the plastic curtains and the loud thunk of his Irish Spring soap banging on the porcelain. Keith turned, hands paused in their tasking of lathering his hair with shampoo, and squinted at his husband.

Lance pressed his fingers to his mouth in a gesture of clumsy innocence, smiled, then bent lewdly for the bar so his ass displayed neatly. On accident, of course. What a _silly_ omega to drop the soap like that.

 “Would be a shame if someone took advantage of me in such a state?” He purred, voice husky and dark with mastered seduction.

The rush of the shower swallowed Lance’s words and nulled the effect of his attempts to rile up the alpha’s libido.

 “What?” Keith leaned forward as he strained to hear Lance.

Lance cleared his throat and said, louder, over the water sprinkling down the white bottom of the shower. “I said, it would be a shame if _someone_ took advantage of me in such a state.”

“I have shampoo in my hair,” he said as rivulets of soap tracked down his face. He wiped to prevent any from going into his eyes while he stared at Lance, naked and bent at the waist.

Disgruntled by the total failure of his scheme, Lance huffed, snatching up the soap in a hurried fashion, thrust it on the holder and growled.  “Jesus Christ. Do me.”

“Okay. Okay,” Keith said quickly. It was a tiny annoyance as he waited for thirteen hours for a good shower and all yet Lance was fetching in slippery liquids like cum, lube, slick, and water.  By the end of this, he would be drenched in three of the four listed prior.

“Let me rinse first,” he popped his brows to motion the white bubbles that would kill the mood if it went unattended.

 Fast, crazy shower sex worked in movies. In real life they guaranteed soap blinding you, dancing wildly over the slippery floor so you didn’t lose your balance and eat shit, and a chance of an unexpected run to the ER at the wee hour of midnight.

So no thanks. Hard no on being admitted for a busted skull because Lance had to have a dick pronto.

“Hurry up.” Lance assumed the position— ass out and face to the tile glistening from the heat of the shower. “I have to cook dinner.”

Keith put his head under the water as he carded his hand feverishly through his hair until the water ran less slippery; it should be a tiring thing at this point of their relationship, sex. Something they should work up the effort and time for between full-time jobs, the daily demands of life, and the unplanned ones. But it wasn’t. Lance needed only to breathe down his neck, mouth wet noisy kisses from his shoulder blade to the curls of his hair, press his body along Keith’s so his arousal went noticed, and Keith was _there_. Hot. Bothered. Worked up. In a _state,_ man. In love. In lust. Mad and loving.

Sex made him a lumbering beast. He shifted his weight on the hand braced to the wall where his thumb could brush against Lance’s. Then he dragged a hand along his brown nape, to the shadow of his spine, till he found the cleft of his ass. Groaned as he slid two fingers down and got Lance’s entrance, wet and twitching for him, and let that feeling get up in him, drive him wild because it was still magic, still hot to have this pretty omega all fucked up and wet.

“Keith,” Lance sighed as two fingers wiggled past his hole.

“So damn needy,” Keith husked. Watched water sped over his skin. Saw Lance widen his legs in unguided command; biology knew what was up. His omega knew what was up.  Sucked on his lip when he looked down to his fingers being _devoured_ by Lance, where Lance was getting red and hotter.

Lance pushed back, hips hypnotic as they took and gave. Slicking up Keith’s fingers with each retreat. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, blue demolished to black and face pink from the steam and sex in the dim light behind the shower curtain, and said simply, “Alpha,” aware of the fact the tiny title spoken in his sex roughened voice would telegraph to Keith his desperation.

And you had to be an alpha, a mate, a lover to get it.

To hear it.

To feel it.

Them.

The other person.

Your other half.

The sunlight peeking at the exit of a dark tunnel.

“Yea, omega, gotta fill you up, right? Nice and thick. I got you, baby. I know how you like it,” Keith said.

Yea, back to the same old, same old.

Back to being big alpha with his—

Pretty omega who hijacked the stars and the sea.

Back into his warm body. The hot, wet squeeze of him that greeted Keith’s dick every time because even on the regular Lance got bad and hot like it was scarce.

Back to his moans, loud and without a mute button.

Back to that body shiny with water, brown, and _bad_ to the bone, trained well to misbehave. To make waves in Keith’s heart and cock.

 Back to pressing Lance against surfaces and pounding his ass. Watching the skin there grow a terrible pink from the brutal way Keith rammed into him.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Their two dogs, a fair haired Chihuahua, Diana, and a slow moving Dachshund, Black Widow, met Keith at the door with their high pitched barking. They pawed at his legs for his attention and for the box of sliders he’d got from White Castle. Keith went into the bedroom where he had left Lance with the task of assembling their bed.

Keith set the food on the dresser. “You’re still at it? I left thirty minutes ago.”

Black Widow found a spot to curl in once she realized dinner was not being served. Diana walked all over the room and stepped over Lance’s legs and nosed at the tools and small screws.

Lance glared at the unassembled pieces with a deep resentment. “ _Mi corazon_ , you overestimate my carpentry skills. This is Ikea furniture, the most fearsome of all assembly require furniture.”

“Are you sure those pieces go together?”

Lance jammed a screw into one of the planks, the veins on his forearm straining from exertion. “Look I know wood.”

“Did you read the instructions?”

The screw sort of slotted in the hole long enough for Lance to grab a power drill and force the metal in. The wood splintered and the screw went in, crooked. “Uh.”

Diana investigated the noise with Lance. The wood had hair thin cracks around the screw.

“Lance. Read it.”

“I don’t wanna.”

Keith read it. It was still in the protective sleeve of plastic. He balled that up and tossed it to the pile of cardboard boxes against one of the walls. “That’s the wrong one. Piece Z goes into W and do not say ‘that’s what—“

“—That’s what she said.”

Keith lowered the paper. “I can’t believe I put my dick in that mouth. Seriously.”

Encouraged by Keith’s annoyance, Lance said. “You saw that _coming_.”

“Dude. Get the bed together or we’ll end up sleeping on the sofa again. It’s bad for our back.”

“Your back. I’m not the senior citizen here.”

“No White Castle for you.”

 “Wait. I need fuel to build our bed, _mi corazon_.”

Keith stepped over the mess of bolts and hinges and slabs of wood to hand Lance the packet. “Then read the manual.”

Lance snatched it. Vehemently, mind you, and flipped through the package with a huff. “Fine. I’ll read the stupid manual and build this stupid bed.”

“If it makes you happy I can fuck you extra hard in our stupid bed.”

He looked up from reading the instructions. “Can I fuck you?”

“Fine. But don’t come in two seconds. My ass doesn’t have an endless lube supply like yours”

The omega babbled out a string of sounds that Keith could not describe as anything remotely human before he got his words in his mind to cooperate with his mouth and said. “It was a minute, Keith.”

“Thirty seconds,” he corrected quick.

An evil setting rearranged Lance’s face. It was to be seen whether this malevolent force benefitted the alpha or not. “Man I’m gonna last so long tonight that your ass will be a cave. With an echo.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

So that evil, evil, evil force— _man, oh man_ ; it was good Keith learned on the mattress.

Malicious.

Vindictive.

Mayhem.

Ungoverned.

The words adequately described the way Lance was fucking him on the just recently assembled bed frame, the wood creaked and one of the legs were off but the bed stood elevated and the bed was the furthest thing on his mind anyway. They would buy another one in a few years or so, no biggie. The only biggie rammed into him. Swollen, hot, and god damn thick.

His mate hit him good again— had this insanely strong and barbaric hold on his ass, fingers sinking and bruising him—and made the lights and whistles in his body could hectic and loud. Jackpot. Bull’s-eye. Candy Land’s color palatte, bright and chaotic in colors and visuals. Keith fisted the pillow and brought it to his face so he could chew on something and not scream. “Lance. Fuck. There, baby, fuck me there.”

Lance whimpered, hot breath on Keith’s ear. The words sounded like a religion, a song.

“Alpha. Alpha,” he whined. Sounded like he did when the situation was in reserve and Keith treated him to white hot thrust and mind-numbing hip rolls.

Yea, cause _you’re_ the one getting fucked hard, right. Begging like that. Like it was too good for him. Too cumbersome to focus. Too hot to grip.

He couldn’t bite the pillow this time.  Snapped his head back, sought out and connected eyes with Lance, saw that blue— the blue that saw him in the alley, in his one room apartment, in the sun at Six Flag, at Shiro’s wedding, at their own with the sky vast and the sea voluminous and navy while they exchanged vows. Exchanged rings. Exchanged the words they repeated every night, every morning, every twilight.

Saw blue, love, lust— and damn, you had to get you a guy who fucked you and made love to you at the same time cause it was a real trip. A real lesson in physics.  A _hey, I have a spaceship and I make trips to the sun, wanna hop it_.  A killa. A god to emotions and sensations.

He smashed his lips to Lance’s. Praised him. Watched him.

Keith parted his mouth and moaned. “God, yes.”

Lance’s eye shuttered shut, feeling bright and explosive with Keith watching him. “Feels so good, baby. So good. So tight. Making me crazy.”

“Don’t stop. Don’t— wait. Something’s touching my feet.”

Lance smacked his ass and nibbled on his ear. “Ignore it. C’mon, baby, focus on my dick.”

“It’s wet,” Keith said as his mind tried to do the math on this one.

Lance totally misunderstood him and groaned hoarsely, roughening his voice to spice up the sex. “Fuck yea I am. So hot for you, beautiful. Make me so—“

“No. Like my feet.”

He slowed, mouth pressed in a tight, unamused line and complained. “I am trying to fuck you. Stop killing my stroke.”

A wetness lapped Keith’s feet. A smooth flat tongue. Keith looked at Lance in the dark. “Did you kick the dogs out?”

Lance moved behind him, trying to find that heat which made the sex so sweet and good.

“Lance!” Keith shouted when he ignored him.

 “Um. I don’t know?”

Keith’s eyes zapped to the bulge at their feet. The pilling of the blankets fooled one into thinking nothing of consequence but if you observed closely a shape twitched under the folds. Another tongue lapped at his toes. “They’re licking my feet.”

“So, ignore it. I’m really close.” Lance went back to it.

Keith wanted to smack his shoulder and tell him to think with his head and not his god damn cock but a hand cupped his balls, rolled them dirty, and wrapped up his cock like some whore on the clock. A mouth to his neck sucked loud and sloppy.

Keith forgot about the dogs for a moment. “Lance—shit. Oh shit. Oh fuck.”

A smirk laced Lance’s voice, proud and insolent. “See. Don’t worry.”

One of the shapes under the covers moved, a like a dark fin in dark waters. Diana padded up the bed and curled on one of their pillows and watched with her unknowing dog eyes.

Keith gritted. “Diana is watching.”

Lance took his hand off Keith’s cock and nudged Diana so she would roll and stare at the wall. “Diana. Sweetie. Go away. Daddy’s busy here.”

Diana thought Lance’s touch was him petting her and got comfortable on the pillow.

“Lance, she’s still watching.”

“Look. Close your eyes or something then.”

“Assh- ah, ha. Babe.”

“Alpha.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Trick or Treaters rang the bell. Glued to the TV and currently being used as their pups mattress Keith looked over the armrest and shouted for Lance.

“Babe.”

The kids knocked again, calling loud, “Trick or treat!”

Keith hollered for Lance. “Yo! I hope you don’t expect my ass to answer the door.”

One of the kids, the Iron Man,  tapped his sticky fingers on the window. “I can hear the TV!” He told his friends. They doubled their efforts and all pounded on the front door at once.

Keith grumbled and asked Diana and Black Widow to move for daddy. He lifted the bowl of store bought candy and opened the door. The kids lined up for their reward. Keith handed Iron Man a mini Snicker and a death glare.

He locked the door, deposited the bowl, and walked to their bedroom. “Lance?”  He pushed the bathroom door.

A clown popped behind the door and swiftly earned a fist guided on basic instinct and Keith’s absurd phobia of clowns.

“Fuck!” The clown bellowed and crumbled to his obnoxiously bright red shoes; wait that sounded like Lance…

Oh.

Shit.

“Lance?” Keith screamed, fists still curled and trapped in the state of fight or flight.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Lance’s nose gushed blood on to his fingers as he cradled it. Blood tracked over the puffy sleeves of his yellow and blue costume.

Keith snatched a roll and ripped a long line of paper and pressed it under Lance’s nose to catch the blood.  Tears from the hit watered his eyes and ruined his makeup. “What is wrong with you?”

“You punched me,” said Lance, voice a high nasally sound with his nose plugged up.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“That was very clear to me.”

Keith wedged an arm under Lance’s pits and hauled him up so he could lean over the sink. Keith pulled the wad of blood and chucked it into the trash bit.

“You know I hate clowns,” he said to Lance as he handed over another roll.

“That. Was. The point. Dick.”

“So Pizza Hut for forgiveness?”

“Boy. You better remove my soul through my dick to get any love from me today.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Smoke drifted up from the red-hot coals under the grate. The family was out in full force for this year’s Fourth of July, Lance had nominated their new abode with an in-built pool and wide yard up for ground zero. So the kids that Keith first met at Gabby’s graduation were taller, more teenage looking but they still screamed and shouted like children. Diana and Black Widow enjoyed themselves by chasing them around and being on the receiving end of cuddles and belly rubs.

Allura floated in the pool with Shay’s little girl, Theresa, in a kid floatie of a Zebra and splashed water. Theresa giggled, trying to grab the water in her hand. Gabby got a running start and cannonballed into the pool.

Dulce and Manny followed her example and dived in too.

Allura shouted, shielding Theresa with her arms as she endured the full impact of their reckless dives.

“Gabby!” Allura wiped her eyes and hammered her fist into the water.

“Wha— oh shit.” She timed her dodge too late and received the wave full of pool water in her face.

Manny drifted on his back, face to the sun. “Allura’s a party-pooper.”

Dulce, stiff as a log, let the water carry her next. “Lame. Lance is much more fun.”

“Lance is an idiot.”

Lance walked by the pool’s edge with cool blue shades and a Levi’s snapback as he balanced a layered bowl heavy with raw steak.  He cocked his hip out and lifted his shades with a Cali flair of douchebaggery. “You rang?”

“Lance, play with us,” Manny and Dulce begged.

“I gotta get this grub in.” He motioned to the bowl.

“Allura’s boring.”

“I know. But we have to make sacrifices.”

“Fudge you,” Allura said as she spun Theresa in her floatie, making ripples stretch out across the pool’s surface. “You fudging fudger.”

The omega pressed his fingers to his chest, colored scandalized, and gasped with an accent of an old school Southern bell. “Allura, do you kiss Shiro with that nasty mouth?”

Allura abandoned her PG-rated swearing and went with the bird instead.

“Real mature, princess.”

Keith called for Lance from the grill, holding the tongs in one hand and snapping his fingers with the other. “Babe, meat.”

Lance placed the bowl near the open grill. The sun loitered in the cloudless sky like a fat coin. Summer heat and rays browned his mate already dark skin.

Keith could feel Lance’s chest pressing against his back and the hard bone of his jaw as the omega perched his chin on his shoulder. “I like the way you handle your meat. You’re pretty good at grilling too.”

Meat hissed when he draped it over the foil. Keith salted the sides and watched the meat brown and flipped it over. “How do you want your meat?”

“Raw dog,” he laughed.

“Shut up. I will give your ass a frozen patty.”

“Well done.”

Keith laid out the cooked meat on a separate plate and lined the foil with raw strips. “Fucking wuss.”

Excitement extracted the lazy slouch off his back. “Whoa, should I start the music cause it sounds to me like we’re about to have another face off?”

“No music,” Keith whined.

But Lance’s hands were already fishing through his shorts. He showed Keith the screen as he scrolled through his music library. “Am I a wuss?”

“No. But you are an embarrassment.”

Hunk had a sweating bottle in his hand. “Should I ask?” The grill had one of those attached bottle openers on the side; Hunk edged the cap and popped it off.

“Lance likes to play the Mortal Kombat song whenever we fight or disagree.”

Future disagreement averted, Lance returned his phone back to his pocket. Peace remained.

“Oh, does it work?”

Lance answered for him. “Try having a serious conversation with Shay while you play it. You’ll see. Keith can’t stay mad.”

“Yea cause you’ll start dancing.”

“That’s called a fighting stance.”

“And he’ll say shit like ‘Falcon Punch’. Or ‘Nine Dicks Jujutsu’.”

“Did you guys just give me marriage advice, whoa, humanity is fucked up as hell.”

“Talk shit all you want but me and Keith are foreva. We’re gonna shit in adult diapers together. Keith will go bald. I’ll have to take pills to get hard. It’s gonna be sweet.”

“I have more hair than you.”

“Hence you go bald.”

“Hey baby.” Shay kissed Hunk on the cheek.

“Shay you prego or did you forgo bikini season?”

“Fuck you, I’m with child. I can eat all I want. I’m making humans, what are you doing with your fat?”

“Making majestic turds, girl," said Lance. "Also  I’m so proud of your sperm, Hunk, you bring great pride to the family. Unlike some people. Shiro.”

Shiro walked by upon hearing his name. “What I do now?”

“Your sperm sucks.”

The alpha tipped back his beer and smirked. “Not according to your sister.”

Allura clung to the side of the pool and shouted, “Leave my uterus alone. Go get pregnant if you want a kid.”

“I mean Keith’s keeps coming in my ass but nothing’s happening,” said Lance over the sizzling meat.

“No jizz talk.”

“Yes, jizz talk.”

“Mom!” Hunk and Allura ratted.

 

 

[x]

 

 

A minute into his shift, Keith got the call into Coran’s office.

Coran sat behind his desk, red hair looking dull and greasy. “I have something for you two. Big case. Wanna see if you two up for the job.”

Coran moved the file across the desk. Keith and Pidge shared a look before he grabbed it and leafed through the paperwork and photographs.

Stunned, Keith darted his eyes to Coran. “You want us to go after Paladin and Z?”

“There’s been some buzz on the street. Intel’s telling me the big dogs are back in Chicago. Without their presence, others gangs have been warring over their scraps. They want it back but no one will care unless they are here in person.”

“Sure it’s me you want working this?” asked Keith.

“Tell me something, if you could do that day over again would you do anything different?”

“Wouldn’t let my ass get shot that’s for sure.”

“Then I want you guys on this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Keith, this isn’t for you to settle beef. This is you doing your duty to this city as an officer. Clean the streets.”

“I know, LT.”

They sat up, nodded their thanks to their superior officer, and stepped outside his office with the door shutting softly against the wood frame. The department buzzed with shrilling phones, alphas trekking in and out of the place with vests on their chest and Glocks on their belts, coffee perfumed the room from its position in the break room as someone brewed a new pot, laughter bubbled between cops.

Pidge took the file out of Keith’s hand and scanned it. A thick one, loaded from years and years of hunting and interrogating gang alphas, grainy photos from surveillance video, a record of crimes theorized to be at the hands of Zarkon and the White Paladin. Shiro cradled this case. Got them close to the finish line.

Keith was going to cross it.

“We’re in the big leagues now. Case like this makes alphas,” Pidge said with an unflinching certainty.

“Makes enemies too,” Keith noted.

Pidge snorted. “Like people like us anyway. So how about we ruin some bad guys’ day and make a lot of noise in Galra and Volt?”

“Sure. We play it wise though. I have a man to come back to.”

A mate. Two dogs. And a home with a mortgage.

Plenty reason to clean the streets and make it so he got home every night to Lance.

The alpha slapped his gut. “Way to kill our badass cop moment with your mushy feelings. My cats would miss me too. Do you think Meow Mix grows on trees?”

Keith laughed, walking down the hall. “Just throwing it out there.”

Pidge matched his stride. Always game, always hellfire, always on Keith’s six to keep his ass from KO-ing on the shift. “You’re the dumbass that got shot, not me.”

“You like bringing that up all the time.”

“Someone gotta keep your wannbe John Wick ass grounded. I’ll let that be my honor and burden.”

“Maybe you’ll get shot.”

“My girlfriend will go down on me for a month if I do so I’m not against the idea entirely.”

They took the elevator down to the basement, hopped into a blue and white Charger, and peeled out the garage. Keith turned on street for Galra home with windows downs as the life and bustle of Chicago entered the car— the noise of traffic, random people on their phones or in talk with a friend, the music of local birds, the windy gust blowing cool air in the trees, in people’s hair, in their clothes.

Time to sniff at corners. Put eyes on homes. See what kicks back when they apply pressure.

Remembered the heat of the bullet passing through his skin. The ground at his back when he fell. Zarkon walking past like nothing because shit like a cop bleeding out was nothing in his book so—

This wasn’t to be some shit about revenge or payback.

This was to be justice and all that.

Family waited at home.

A family couldn’t afford an angry cop. A vengeful one.

Keith planned to clean the streets, starting with Z and White.

After all, had a mate at one and two pups.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well we're finally at the end of this fic and I want to thank everyone for the support and love on here and tumblr. I wasn't sure if anyone would take to this fic but I wanted to write it for so long. Thank you for helping me on this, your comments guided me through my fears and doubts with writing.
> 
> And for anyone expecting the whole Lotor confrontation, I was going to add it in but as I wrote the last chapters I did not see the point of it. The story has always been about Lance and Keith and I felt adding the ex drama would be cheap and easy. Plus it didn't make sense to their characters to have this pissing contest with Lotor when they're happy with each other. If you're disappointed, then I'm sorry but I didn't want it in my fic.
> 
> And one last note, I am writing another mult chapter Klance fic that i hope to have up in a week or two. So if you're a fan of my writing then keep an eye out.
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp
> 
> Until next time!  
> THANK YOU ALL!!!

**Author's Note:**

> don't you love keith pinning hard for lance, cause i sure do.


End file.
